The Things You Never Knew About People
by joudama
Summary: Pregame. You'd be amazed, the things you never knew about people. Elena likes horror, Rude has a sweet tooth, and Reno, well, Reno is a rather cunning linguist.
1. Flawless

Chapter 1: Flawless

The things you never knew about people.

You'd never guess, to look at him, that Rude had a sweet tooth. And not just a sweet tooth, but a major, mega, if you want that candy bar you better be faster than him or not afraid to lose that hand kind of sweet tooth.

You'd never guess, to look at her, that Elena had an intense love of B-grade horror movies, and had seen almost every bad horror flick in the last five years in the theatres, and had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of who had been in or directed what.

And you'd never guess, to look at him, that Reno would be the one sitting lazily with one arm flung back over the chair, chewing out the waitress over the food in flawless Wutai.

Flawless for a street punk, that is. Flawless gutter, street Wutai.

Tseng had just stared at Reno, when Reno opened his mouth and "_What the shit is this_!" came out. "_I've scraped better dragon noodles off my shoes than this, sweetie_," he'd snapped, stabbing at the bowl emphatically and glaring at the waitress. "_I ordered dragon _noodles_, not dragon _shit_. Don't try and pawn crap off on me thinking I won't know any better just 'cause I'm a natural redhead_."

"_Like that color is natural_," Tseng said under his breath in Wutai without thinking.

Reno smiled one of his more dangerous smiles, dangerous not because of threat or malice but dangerous because it usually _inspired_ threat or malice in other people. "_Want to find out for sure, boss_?"

Tseng only raised an eyebrow, knowing he had brought it on himself--but he hadn't been able to help it, really; switching languages had been like switching brains. "Others are trying to eat. It would be a shame to ruin everyone's appetite," he said, pointedly not using Wutai.

Reno's grin changed, became a little more leering and speculative. "_I see you didn't say 'no', though, there_." His attention immediately went back to the waitress. "_Yeah, I didn't forget. Take this slop back and bring me some real noodles_." Reno leaned back then, almost lazily, but the waitress' eyes widened as she saw the handle of his stunner.

Reno smiled again, this time more of a smirk as he saw the girl go a little pale and hurriedly take the offending dish away.

After a while, when Reno's second bowl came and he declared that one edible, Tseng finally said something; basically said what everyone was thinking and if hadn't been asked by him, would be asked by someone else, most likely Elena, judging by the look on her face. "You speak Northern Wutai?"

Reno shrugged, slurping his noodles. "Yeah," he said off-handedly, seeming far more interested in his food, and like this was the most natural thing in the world, that he would speak an obscure Wutai dialect like a native, without even the faintest hint of an accent. "Picked up the northern dialect when I was a kid. Didn't know you spoke Northern, though. 'Tseng' is _Xizhou_ district name, ain't it, so I figured if you knew anything, it'd be _Xizhouhua_, which no offense, sounds like the drunken retarded little brother of _Beizhouhua_ and I couldn't never wrap my brain around that shit, what the hell, what language needs seven different tones, I ask you? None. Fucked up shit, yo, _Xizhouhua_. And I thought everyone learned that Eastern _Dahehua_ nowadays, what with that Kiseragi dude bein' king, and don't even get me started on how fucked up _Dahehua_ is, ain't got no tones, sure, but fuck, all the damn politeness levels and shit, it and _Chaohua_ don't sound shitall like what's on the rest of Wutai so how the fuck is it one language? Anyway, _Beizhouhua_ fell out, dinn't it? ...what?" he said, blinking at everyone staring at him, freezing with his mouth open, about to shovel in a mouthful of noodles and eyes flicking from one of the Turks to another.

Elena finally spoke first, getting her brain around the shock of Reno's fluent ease around words she couldn't even begin to pronounce. "I had no idea you had an interest in anything that wasn't a bomb or had boobs."

"Well, the Wutai did invent gunpowder," Rude said from off to the side.

Reno dropped his chopsticks and then burst out laughing. "Damn right about that one!" His grin turned into one of the man's more perverted ones. "And nothing gets you Wutai tail faster than telling someone how hot they are in Wutai, and letting them know you're a natural redhead, which is something I can say in Northern, Eastern, AND Yamatan Wutai." The grin got a little more lewd. "No one believes it, so everyone wants to check my hair color for themselves, ain't that right, boss?" he finished, grin a little more daring.

Tseng chose to not dignify that with a response of any kind. "Can you read Wutai?" he said instead, eyebrows raising slightly.

Reno snorted and picked up his chopsticks again. "Yeah, right. I can read a menu and that's about it."

For some reason, that made Tseng smile, and Reno went a little bit pale, "Uh-oh" flashing for a minute clear as a signpost on his face. "...shit."

It was Elena, Rude realized later, who had put Reno in a bad mood. Reno had been in high spirits before, after their mission, when they had stopped to eat. But then, blowing things up usually tended to put Reno into high spirits, but it also meant that when the rush was gone, he crashed all the more. Most of the time, he didn't show it until he was off-duty--for all he was a mouthy little bastard, he was a professional--but Rude knew Reno enough to know what it meant when the unnatural sparkle of an adrenalin rush in Reno's eyes faded.

This, though, was different. Reno might normally be a little more of a sarcastic son of a bitch when he was coming down, but it was nothing like this.

Moods like this, this was when if you were lucky, you sent Reno out to kill something; if you were smart, you got out his way; and if you were neither, you offered to spar with him.

Which is how Rude found himself down another pair of sunglasses and quite certain he needed to stay awake for the next several hours or get himself a nice, large potion. Maybe two. And maybe both.

Elena had been clearly unable to really believe what her ears had been telling her, and she had pounced on Tseng verbally, asking him if Reno really was speaking Wutai, and how good it was. Tseng ignored her babble for the most part, before finally saying that yes, Reno was speaking Wutai, albeit an uncommon dialect, and not only that, he spoke that dialect without even a trace of an accent.

"No way," Elena had said, clearly disbelieving. "There's no _way_ that _he_ speaks Wutai that well."

"And no way I'm HERE and UNDERSTAND what you're SAYING," Reno shot back, eyes narrowing. "Why's it so fuckin' hard to believe I can speak another language, huh?"

"Well, because you're...you...I mean...good lord, Reno, I just never would have imagined you, of all people, being able to speak _Wutai_!" she finally said.

"I see," Reno had said, his voice completely cold, so much that Rude had turned slightly to stare at him in surprise for all his face didn't change. Elena, for her part, seemed to realize that she had perhaps said one thing too many, again, tried to dig herself out of the pit she just dug herself into, and finally just mumbled, "It's just surprising, that's all," and shrunk slightly, focusing on the rest of her food.

Reno's good mood hadn't recovered, and he had been almost preternaturally silent the rest of the way back, but almost crackling with tension. Which had led to Rude's offer to spar, figuring the man needed to hit something and be hit before he ended up doing something dumb, like killing someone or crashing at a high speed into a non-moving object.

One thing about Reno, Rude thought as he tried to block another of the man's uncannily-aimed kicks for a weak spot, was that the man moved with a kind of grace you usually only found in someone drunk off their ass--a loose-limbed grace that Rude found himself envying from time to time; a kind of grace indicated extreme comfort in one's own skin, something Rude had never quite known. Reno moved his body like he never, ever had to think about it, it just moved like the way it flowed was how it was supposed to. And for someone with no mako enhancements--that was one aspect of the Turks that people never expected, that they were completely ordinary, no mako (and this, Rude thought, was probably a good thing, given that the things they did would probably drive a sane man to madness, and adding mako to the mix was never a good idea), Reno was frighteningly fast.

After Reno had gotten that first edge off--and given Rude a kidney shot and some kind of flying kick to the head--Rude concentrated on blocking what would come next, and waiting for the inevitable flood of words, prompting it finally with a slightly out of breath, "Elena get to you that bad, partner?"

"Just kinda irked me, is all," Reno said, not looking Rude in the eyes as they sparred, still moving restlessly and erratically. "I'm a thug, yeah, but I ain't a _dumb_ thug. Actin' like I don't know nothing but how to blow shit up," he said, kicking viciously. If Rude hadn't moved, he'd have probably gotten a concussion from that, and Rude thought to himself that he really needed to work on blocking things aiming for his head.

"Yeah, I can speak some Wutai. Fuck, man, my _best friend_ when I was a kid was from Wutai. We were the scrawny little fucks everyone else beat up 'til the two of us runts started figuring out how to defend ourselves--me and Jie used to plan out how we were gonna jack up which asshole gunning for us, and we'd do it right in front of the fucks 'cause they didn't understand us. And Jie's mom didn't speak English, yo. She still treated me better than my damn mom ever did, couldn't never get her hands out of my hair, she always had to touch it, and fuck, man, she made the best bailong mian that there ever was. I ate at their place every night almost, up until..."

Reno's words cut off abruptly and he went still, something in his eyes shuttering in a way Rude had never seen outside of when the other man went into professional-mode, and even then, this was...different. A smile flicked out on Reno's face, lazy and drawling, only his eyes showing that he wasn't normal. "Aww, hell, what time is it now? It's gotta be almost eleven o'clock, easy. Fuck, no wonder I'm beat, partner. We had a long day, and then came out here trying to kick the shit outta each other. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to call it a day. You up for a beer?"

Rude nodded, letting a faint smile of his own twitch his lips upwards. "Always, partner," he said, glad that his own eyes were safely hidden by the spare sunglasses he had pulled out of his jacket pocket when Reno had gone still, and figuring any bar worth its salt would have at least one potion on hand.

Reno grinned again. "Well, what're we waitin' for?" he drawled, and Rude watched him slink towards door, confident of being followed, and let a faint frown touch his lips before it was gone, and before he followed Reno out to whatever bar Reno know of that would have whatever oblivion Rude was certain the man was going to seek that night.


	2. Stupid Egg

Notes: If my "Wutai" is off, whoops. I am a geek and I know it. Also, "ben dan" is pronounced like "bun dahn," only, you know, not. ;

Summary: In the end, the first words they figured out together were "stupid" and "ben dan."

_Di er hua: Ben dan_

When the fight was over, the two kids looked at each other. Reno didn't know why he'd waded into a fight that wasn't his, but he'd been in the mood to hit something and it had seemed like a good way. The other kid, the one the assholes that usually were after Reno had been fighting, had been kinda cool, the way he was fighting. Well, once the odds evened up.

The kid pointed to himself. "_Wo shi Qian Jie Guang_."

Reno blinked. "...What?"

"_Jie Guang. Wo jiao _Jie_. Jie_!"

"Jay? That what you said? That your name? Jay?"

"Jie."

"Jay?"

"JIE."

"...Ja...Jay?"

"_JIE_!"

"Ji-e? Jie?" Reno said, finally twigging on to the way the kid was saying the name, way it sounded like a question, going up.

The kid, Jie, nodded, and grinned, then pointed at Reno. "_Ni ne_?"

"My name ain't 'Nina,' what, you think I'm a girl? My name's Reno. RENO."

"Lei Nuo?"

Well, that was all wrong. Close, but...yeah, not right, and Reno figured, as much as this Jie kid had pitched a fit over Reno saying HIS name right, Reno could insist on Jie saying Reno's name right. "Reno."

"Leinuo."

"RENO, stupid, RENO."

"...Renuo stupid."

Reno glared and raised a thin little fist. "I'll stupid you! RENO, stupid!"

In the end, the first words they figured out together were "stupid" and "_ben dan_." Jie said "Renuo stupid" one more time, and Reno launched himself arms flailing at Jie, screaming like a banshee. Fifteen minutes, one black eye, two split lips, and one bloody nose later they had stopped and were sitting on the ground glaring at each other.

"_Ben dan, ni gan shen mo da wo_! _Ni shi ben dan_!" Jie said, glaring and thumping his fist on the ground.

"Yeah, we'll YOU'RE the one calling me stupid! _You're_ a _ben dan_!" he said, pointing at Jie emphatically as he latched onto the last thing Jie had said, not knowing what it meant but knowing it wasn't good. "_Ben dan! Ben dan! _You're _ben dan_!"

Ten minutes, another black eye, another bloody nose, a bruised rib, and a concussion later, they were grinning at each other, and both had a pretty good idea of what exactly "stupid" and "_ben dan_" meant.

"_Ni jiao _Reno_ ma_?" the kid, Jie, said. "_Bu jiao _stupid," he said, grinned. "_Suiran ni bu jiao_ stupid, _ni hen _stupid," he said, grinning evilly.

"I dunno what you said, but I know you're a _ben dan_," Reno shot back, giving the kid the same kind of evil grin along with a rude gesture, and the two of them burst out laughing.

Then Reno's stomach growled. "Aw, man, I'm soooo hungry..." Reno muttered, clutching his stomach, at the same time as the scrawny Wutai kid, Jie, was making similar motions and moaning, "_Wo hao e le_!"

They looked at each other, and the kid made an eating motion.

"Yeah! Food!" Reno said, nodding. His face dropped. "I ain't got no money, though. Guess I can lift somethin' off old man Meelin, though, maybe...but aww, man, he remembers me from last time!"

The kid stood up and waved his hand, beckoning, and started off. He turned and beckoned again, and Reno shrugged, stood up, and followed.

Reno's impression of "_ben_""stupid" was greatly strenghtened when they ended up in Jie's house, and the woman Jie pointed to and said, "Reno, _zhe shi wo ma_," which apparently meant this was his mom, went ballistic; there were many cries of "_ben_" as well as more thumps upside the head, all supplied by an angry Wutai mother as she bandaged the two of them up. They had tried to deflect her anger onto the other--Jie had yelled "_Ta jiao wo ben dan_!" while pointing accusingly at Reno after having been thumped soundly on the head, and Reno had immediately piped in with, "But he called me stupid!" and pointing back just as accusingly at Jie, defending himself.

Which got them both thumped on the head again, and in the end left the both of them sulking at the unfairness of it all, being beaten up and hungry and hit by an angry mother on top of it all, and they continued sulking after she left, muttering "Your mom's _ben dan_" and "_Wo ma hen_ stupid" respectively, until two plates of food Reno had never seen before but smelled better than anything he'd ever had were put in front of them, at which point all was almost forgiven.


	3. Half

Chapter three: Half

He had never, Rude realized, seen Reno drink in the way he was drinking now.

He'd seen Reno drink a lot. It almost pained Rude to have to admit that Reno could hold his liquor far better than Rude could himself, since Reno was so much smaller, but he was saved from that by the fact that Reno had also spent more of his life in a drunken stupor than Rude ever had, and the gods only knew just how much Reno had snorted, sniffed, injected or swallowed in his life before he became a Turk and had to limit himself. Reno was insatiable in all things, and unapologetic in his insatiability.

He'd seen Reno drinking to get drunk. He'd seen Reno drinking to forget. He'd seen Reno drinking with such an unflagging joy for the process that Rude had been hard-pressed not to smile at it.

But this...this was different. There had been something forced in Reno's cheer, desperate in the shots he was knocking back. The cheer had faded after about fifteen minutes, Reno seemingly having decided that Rude wasn't buying it, and there was something brittle and hard about the way he was drinking, like if someone said or did anything Reno was shatter into glass and cut to a bleeding ruin whoever had set him off. The only time he'd ever seen that look on Reno's face had been when they were working--working and Reno knew it was a hit. Coldly detached and dangerous like a knife; everything about him sharp-edged. Rude watched Reno silently knocking back shot after shot, the smile on Reno's face of a kind Rude couldn't begin to interpret in this context. Rude knew to tread lightly, but he had no idea where it was, exactly, that he was supposed to tread.

"So," Rude finally said. "What exactly is 'bye long me an'?"

That got Reno's attention. "...Bwu-ha?" he said, one eyebrow cocking up, the on-a-hit look on his face changing into confusion.

"I could have been mistaken," Rude said, somewhat defensively, but knowing he didn't quite remember and his pronunciation was probably off. "It was something that sounded like that. 'Bye long me an."

Reno blinked. "'Bye long me an? What in the...HA!" he said, face lighting up with a sudden, wide grin. Reno had the most expressive face that Rude had ever seen, showing every quicksilver emotion that went through Reno, no matter how fleeting. "_Bailong mian_! That's it, eh? Yeah?"

Rude nodded, taking a sip of his beer. Reno had been knocking back the booze like there was no tomorrow, but Rude, after paying far too much for a potion, had been nursing his beer slowly. "Yes, that." A faint smile touched his own lips, at Reno's pride in himself for figuring it out, and at Reno's unconscious facility with words that Rude himself had failed so badly at.

"_Bailong mian_. Dragon noodles. Well, OK, technically 'white dragon noodles', but you get it."

"Ah," Rude said, nodding. That was what Reno had had at the restaurant, if memory served him correctly. Reno, he remembered, had gotten really happy when he had seen the menu. Rude had assumed the light in his eyes was remnants of the adrenalin high, but now he wondered. He set his beer down carefully, knowing the next question also might not be the safest, but figuring it was his only opening. "How old were you when you started learning Wutai? I'm not expert, of course, but that sounded very native."

"Oh," Reno said, shrugging. He fell silent and frowned for a second, then seemed to make up his mind. "Dunno, actually. Started picking it up when I was, what, eight or nine? Something like that. Maybe ten." He knocked back the rest of the shot, the last in the bottle, and tapped the bar for another. When he got it, he poured another shot, but just held the glass, staring at it, a strange little smile on his face that Rude couldn't identify. "Time I was, shit, twelve or thirteen, I was talkin' more in Wutai than anything, thanks to the kid I was hanging out with. I could go days not sayin' nothin' that wasn't Wutai."

"Hn," Rude said, feeling like a light bulb had just gone off. That explained it, Reno having been so young. Reno, he knew, had grown up under the Plate in the slums, and, to be unpleasantly blunt, down there, like tended to stay with like, so it had been hard to imagine Reno running in a Wutai gang, which had been the only way Rude had been able to figure Reno knowing Wutai as well. But hearing ages like eight or nine bandied around, things suddenly made a lot more sense.

A bottle cap abruptly hit him on the head, and Rude wondered why it was always his head taking abuse.

"Wha'chu thinkin' about?" Reno said, scowling faintly, words slurred from all the alcohol.

Rude took another sip of his beer and said, "I was just trying to picture you as an eight-year-old."

"Oh, yeah?" Reno said, looking amused. "You managin' it?"

Now that he'd said it, Rude couldn't help _but_ imaging a little-kid version of Reno, unkempt red hair and probably covered in bandages and dirt. And with the biggest, brightest eyes you ever saw on a kid. "I bet you were a cute kid."

"Hells, yeah, I was!" Reno said, laughing. "Shit, man, people used to think I was a girl. Well, when I wasn't all beat-up. Hell, that was the fastest way to get me in a fight, call me pretty like a girl. Some smartass'd say it, an' we'd jack 'em up."

He wondered if Reno was aware of that little slip, and decided if there was ever a chance, this was it. "You are your friend, Jay?"

Reno's grin widened, seeming just drunk enough to not have realized what Rude had done. "Yeah. Jie'd hold 'em down and I'd break their face. Or the other way 'round, dependin' on who got called 'pretty.' Had to keep the pedos an' freaks at bay. After all, you couldn't be too careful down there," he said, his face changing again, getting serious. "One dumbass coulda just been bein' a dumbass, but another one coulda been some freak with a thing for pretty boys."

"So better to establish that there would be repercussions for anything that could potentially happen."

"...In your fancy pants, too many damn syllable way, yeah, we wanted to make sure that anyone knew we'd jack up anyone who might even think it. Worked, too," he said, taking another shot. "Me 'n Jie, we knew the stakes. We had each other's backs."

"So, what happened to him?" Reno said, his voice intentionally flat and noncommittal.

And he realized he had pressed his luck right after the words were out of his mouth.

Reno's face went tight and his eyes went ice cold, and he sat up straighter than Rude had ever seen the man even when he was sober, and he glared at Rude before his eyes shuttered again. "Fuck, man, how'd you do that?" he finally asked, grudging respect in his voice and a lazy smile crossing his face. "You're good."

Rude only shrugged. "I simply asked a question and allowed the conversation to go where it would."

Reno smirked. "Riiiight. Try that one somebody who _don't_ know about all them piles of weird-ass psych books and crap you got filling up every inch of space in your apartment, yo. Shit, man, I picked one of them damn things up once and couldn't understand nothin' but 'the' and 'and'. You actually read all them damn book, or they just there for show?"

"It would be pointless to keep books merely to impress anyone, especially if one has no idea of what is contained within said books. One might find oneself in an embarrassing situation, should one's company be an affectionato of the topic, after all. A few questions would give away the ruse."

Reno blinked drunkenly, raising an eyebrow. "And there you go, usin' them big words again," he said, and rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.

"And there _you_ go, pretending you don't understand them," Rude replied back evenly and finished the last of his beer, staring at the empty stein with a glare, wondering vaguely where his beer had gone. He raised his hand to get the bartender's attention, and tapped the space in front of him to indicate another.

Reno stared at Rude for a minute, then burst out laughing. "Shit, partner. I see why you keep all them books. Don't nobody got me figured out quite like you do."

Rude covered the faint smile that showed up by taking a sip of the beer that had come when Reno started laughing, but he couldn't help but wonder how well Reno's mysterious "Jay" had known him. But he knew better than to press his luck again, and opted instead to knock back his beer. "Come on, partner. We still have work tomorrow. Finish up your drink."

Reno rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, OK, Mom," he said, and stuck his tongue out at Rude.

Rude contemplated Reno solemnly. "You're drunker than I thought, if you're mistaking me for your mother."

Reno cackled. "Yeah, that's for damn sure," he said, and hauled himself to his feet, downing the last of his drink as he did so, and putting the glass down clumsily. "C'mon, let's blow this popstand."

"You know, I know that's just an expression, but it makes me nervous when I hear you say it about restaurants and bars that I like, since one never knows when you're being serious. After all, it is difficult to find good establishments nowadays."

Reno blinked for a second as he worked through what Rude had just said, and then his face split into a huge grin, all amused and relaxed and loose. "See, this is why we're friends," he said, and slung his arm over Rude's shoulder. Rude wondered, briefly, at how physical Reno was and had always been. Most of the Turks were very detached from others, as if there was a barrier between themselves and others--something, Rude thought, was necessary, given what they were and what they did. Detached and controlled in all things, down to their movements. But Reno was different, had been from the beginning, and Rude wondered not for the first time what made him so different...but now he wondered how much Reno's "Jay" had had to do with it, and what had happened to make Reno so close-lipped on the subject "You know me too well. And I only blew up one place, and they deserved it. Off we go, then."

Rude nodded once, and filed away in his head that Reno had never answered his question, and that he didn't know half so much as he thought he did just a few hours ago.


	4. Things That Go Boom

Notes: So, Reno is in the process of learning Wutai at this point. Being in the process, he doesn't understand everything. To show this, along with all the language switching, all dialogue in Wutai will be in italics. When Reno doesn't understand, since this _is_ Reno-POV, the words he doesn't understand will be in unitalicized "Wutai". Ie: "_I _xihuan_ to blow shit up_." So the italics, Reno understands, the non-italicized, he doesn't. _Hao? OK?_ XD ...and yes, I am a language geek. Heh. ;; Inversely? Jie is learning English. Sometimes he can't manage it. When he gives up and says something in Wutai it the middle of a sentence, it'll be italicized. If Reno knows the word, it'll be translated into English; if no, it'll be in Wutai.

...With one exception, where I'm leaving something in Wutai that Reno understands in Wutai. Basically, the joke doesn't translate otherwise. All you need to remember is _ben_ means "stupid." XD

Also, Reno's name in the Chinese version of FF7 is "Lei Nuo," and Jie's mom, unable to really get a good grasp on his name due to extreme lack of English ability, calls him "Lei Nuo."

Di si hua - Hua pao things that go boom

Winter, Reno found himself thinking not for the first time, really sucked.

It wasn't just that it was cold, though the cold really, really sucked pretty bad. It was that in winter, you always felt hungry. Or felt it more, at any rate. And it was always pointless to look around his place for food; if there was anything more than some moldy bread, a miracle of some sort happened--if his mom had money for food, she usually spent it getting high instead. Reno was used to no food and being hungry, as much as it sucked, but hated winter because in winter, it was worse, and it was also a hell of a lot harder to _get_ food. Stores didn't have food outside, and it was a whole lot harder to steal food that was _inside_ than it was food that was _outside_. And a lot easier to get _caught_. Winter, he had to work twice as hard to get less food, and that sucked. He glared at the empty cabinets, hating that he was gonna have to go out in the cold and try to find food, and the chances of actually getting something that would be more than a couple mouthfuls were pretty slim.

But there was, he thought, face brightening, another option. One way to get food in winter that worked was to have one person as a distraction while the other got the food--or whatever it is you wanted, like some mittens or a coat, or even shoes. Reno'd never asked Jie to help him get food, but he figured that since he and Jie stole pretty much everything _else_, he'd probably help out.

Or, if Reno was _really_ lucky, Jie's mom would just feed him. Unlike everyone else Reno knew, they _always_ had food. And _lots_ of it. Reno had never seen food in someone's kitchen like he had in Jie's place--every cabinet was crammed full and the fridge was always full to bursting.

Reno had been in shock the first time he saw all the food in their kitchen. "Why y'all got so much food? Umm..._why too much...food_?" he said, switching to Wutai at Jie's blank look.

"_'Too much'? We don't have too much! Wait, you mean why do we have **so much** food_?" Jie asked, frowning slightly.

"Yeah! That! _Why do we--_no, duh, stupid_--**y'all** have so much food?_"

"_Mom works at a _fanguanr," Jie had said with a shrug. "_She always brings home _chisheng _stuff_."

Reno stared at him blankly. "Fanguanr? Chi...chisheng?"

"_Fanguanr is _uh...res...rest...people eat food place," Jie said, making a face.

"People eat food place? Wait...a 'restaurant'?"

Jie nodded. "_Yeah_! Restaurant. 'Chisheng' is people not ate all food."

Reno stared at him, making a face as he tried to work it out. "People not ate all food? HA! Food people didn't all eat! Leftovers!"

Suddenly, why there was food made sense, and why whenever Reno went over, Jie's mom always gave him food. It still shocked him, even after all these months, that she would just _give_ him food, and some part of him was waiting for when his good luck would run out. He didn't push it _too_ bad--like, he wouldn't steal food from their kitchen as strong as the temptations was--but he _would_ try to milk it for all it was worth. It was hella easier, Reno thought, to just make really big eyes at the food before he left, 'cause it meant Jie's mom always got that AWWW look on her face and wrapped up _baozi_ or something for him to take with him. AND if he gave her a big smile after she gave it to him, she would make the AWWW face again, call him cute and maybe pat his head and play with his hair, and sometimes give him MORE food, so it was a win-win all around, even though he DID have to put up with Jie making faces at him while his mom's back was turned. Reno usually horded some of the food in his room, but he never knew when his mom would find it and eat it herself. So far, she hadn't found his new hiding place, but he knew that wouldn't last long.

For now, though, he'd eaten through his stash yesterday, which was why he was hungry now; he'd had a few _baozi_ which had stayed good a couple days because it was so cold in his room that they kept, but Mom hadn't been back in about three or four days, and he'd finally run out of the little food in the house and his stash.

Which meant time for another trip to Jie's, because if Jie's mom didn't feed him, maybe he could at least convince Jie to help him steal food from somewhere. Jie owed him, he figured; he'd been the "distraction" for Jie getting his new mittens.

-

Reno could smell Jie's place before he even got there. "Oh, _man_!" he moaned as his stomach went _nuts_ growling. It smelled like Jie's mom had gone nuts cooking, and it would just be _cruel_ if she didn't give him something. By the time he actually got to their front door, the "I'm hungry, feed me!" face he had been practicing on the way over had changed from an act to completely genuine. He banged on the door and there was a long pause before the door finally opened and Jie's mom, looking thoroughly frazzled, opened it.

Reno got as far as opening his mouth before she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in, chiding him to hurry it up.

"Whuh?" he managed as she all but dragged him back into kitchen. He glanced around bewilderedly. He hadn't been over in a couple days, but in the interim, it looked like the place had been scrubbed clean from top to bottom, and there were fancy paper decorations put up with things in Wutai written on them.

"_Wash your hands and pack things like Jie!"_ she snapped, blowing hair out of her face. "_And hurry! Hurry!"_

She whirled on her heel and went back to stuffing things into _baozi_.

"_Just do it,"_ Jie said. "_Ma's crazy now,_" Jie said, shooting a quick glance at his mother.

"Uh...OK," Reno said, wide-eyed. There was food all over the place, and he was _really, really hungry_, but he had the feeling if he tried to eat anything Jie's mom would smack him with the big wooden spoon that was next to her. He washed his hands really fast and went back over to Jie, and started wrapping things up like Jie was.

"What's all this?" he finally asked.

"Uh...Nong li _New year _food. New Year."

Reno blinked. "New Year! But it's **February**!"

"_In Wutai, it's the new year,_" Jie said, switching back to Wutai. "_And the restaurant Ma works at is making food for some big party_. It's above Plate!"

Reno stopped suddenly. "Oh, wow! You goin'?"

Jie grinned. "_Yeah! Ma said I could go look at stuff while she was working_."

"Lucky!" Reno said, suddenly almost eaten with jealousy. He'd never been above the Plate before. His mom had said he wasn't allowed to go there by himself, and she'd never taken him.

"_Finish working!"_ Jie's mom snapped, and they both jerked with surprise and went back to work. And Reno's stomach started growling again, but Reno was too scared of Jie's mom in scary-mode to risk asking her for something.

About twenty or thirty minutes later, everything seemed like it was ready to go. Jie's mom frazzledly pushed her hair out of her face and stared at them. "_Both of you need to _xizao! _Aa, first eat, then _xizao!" she snapped, and hurriedly cleared a space at the table and put together two plates for them. "_Bian _I'm _xizao_, _bian_ youeat!" she snapped, and hurried off.

Jie and Reno just blinked, and finally Reno looked at Jie and said, "_Your mom's crazy_."

"..._Yeah._"

Still, Reno was not going to turn down food, not after he'd worked so hard and was so hungry. He had no idea what "xizao" meant, but it'd probably become clear sooner rather than later, and meanwhile the food was _here_ and _in front of him_ just begging to be eaten--he had his priorities.

He'd only barely finished when Jie's mom rushed out, hair still wet and a towel wrapped around her, dripping wet. "_You two! Go! The water is ready! Go _xizao!" she snapped, and suddenly, it made sense.

"What!" Reno yelped. "Take a **bath** in **winter** when it's **cold**! No way!" She had to be crazy. Had to be.

While Jie's mom still didn't understand English very well yet, she _did_, Reno discovered once again, understand _lip_, and Reno found himself smacked soundly upside the head and shoved after Jie, ordered once again to take a bath, and ominous words that they had better be completely clean in fifteen minutes following after them.

"Jie, your mom's nuts," Reno said as they headed to the bathroom.

"...Yeah," Jie said, nervously looking over his shoulder as they walked to make sure she wasn't listening.

"_And wash your hair!_" they heard Jie's mom yell down the hall after they went into the bathroom. The unsaid threat of "or I thump both your heads" was clear to both of them, so they just grabbed some towels and stripped quickly and got into the tub.

"_Jie, your mom is **really** crazy,_" Reno said, and started washing quickly, still doubting highly the sanity of being wet in winter.

Jie nodded. "And we need hurry."

"..._yeah_."

They scrubbed clean quickly, helping each other rinse out their hair and checking for dirt anywhere that Jie's mom might find and yell at them for before rinsing off, getting out, and drying off.

They came out of the bathroom and Jie's mom yelled at them from behind her bedroom door to go in Jie's room and put on the clothes on the bed.

"_How your mom do that_?"

"Mom has ear _xiang_ bat ear," Jie whispered nervously, looking like she was afraid she'd hear him.

"_Jie Guang, give Lei Nuo your old red one! He's smaller so it should be OK. You wear the new red one!"_ Jie's mother yelled. She yelled something else that was too muffled for Reno to understand at all, but Jie nodded by reflex and yelled back that he would. Then they went in Jie's room and Reno suddenly understood.

"What the...?" he started, staring at the sets of clothes on Jie's bed.

Jie stared, too, then his face broke into a huge grin. "I think you come with us!"

"I can come with you? Above the Plate? YES!" Reno yelled, cheering. The two of them grinned and started jumping up and down, babbling excitedly.

"_ARE YOU DRESSED_!" Jie's mom yelled, and they stopped jumping and got dressed as fast as they could, with similar "Oh, shit!" expressions on their faces.

They came out a few minutes later, Reno fussing with the unfamiliar clothes and tugging antsily at the high collar. He had just decided he didn't like these clothes at _all_ when Jie's mom came out of her room and his jaw fell open. Jie's mom looked like a totally different woman, tall and confident-looking, hair swept up perfectly in some elaborate style and make-up applied deftly, dressed in a fancy traditional Wutai red dress. Reno found himself just staring at Jie's mom, and happily so, she was so pretty.

"Oh, man, when I grow up, I'm totally hooking up with your mom!" Reno said.

"Hunh?" Jie said. "_I don't understand what you said."_

"...Uh, nothing," Reno said, waving his hand, still staring at Jie's mom.

She noticed them then and smiled, and Reno was convinced she was the prettiest woman _ever_. "_You two are so cute! Jie, so handsome! Such a handsome little man! And aiya, Lei Nuo! You're so cute, so white _xianghua_! You're so _piaoliang_! ...Well, almost. Jie, get me a _fa shuazi_!"_ she ended, raising an eyebrow.

Well, he figured out one word. "Xiang" seemed to mean "like," and all in all, this was sounding like Jie's mom was saying he was pretty like a girl or something. And while normally, Reno would get spitting mad at this, it was hard to get mad at someone so _pretty_, like Jie's mom was, especially with her smiling at him like that. All he could do was smile back at her stupidly.

...Well, smile stupidly until Jie showed up with a hairbrush, and then Jie's mom wasn't quite as pretty. Well, OK, she was, but his head was hurting a lot more. Jie had been laughing really hard at him trying to squirm away and failing miserably because Jie's mom had a _grip_ and it really, really, _really_ hurt when she was going at his hair so fast, then it was Reno's turn to laugh when she turned the evil brush on _Jie_.

"_Get everything and let's go!"_ Jie's mom yelled. Reno and Jie looked at each other, then went to the kitchen table and picked up everything. They were about to head out the door when Jie's mom stopped short. "_Aiya! Lei Nuo, I didn't ask your family! Maybe you can't go! I was too busy and you two are always together! What was I thinking? You were here and...aiya!"_

Reno felt his heart sinking. "_It's ok! Promise! I go, it's OK. OK!"_

_"No, no, You better ask your mother! Lei Nuo, _da _telephone your mother! _Ruguo_ she says OK, you can come."_

Reno swallowed thickly and picked up the phone, figuring "da" must be "call." He dialed the number, and got what he expected.

"This number is no longer in service. Please--"

"Yeah, mom, it's me! Yeah. I'm at Jie's place."

"---hang u--"

"Uh-hunh. Yeah. I did. Uh-hunh. OK, Mom? Yeah, hey, Mom? Listen!"

"--check the number and--"

"Yeah, Jie and his mom, they're going above the Plate for a Wutai New Year thing and said I can go, so can I go? Please? Can I go? Pleeeeease?"

"This number is no longer in service. Please hang up, check the number, and try a--"

"Pleeeeeeeeeease? YES! THANK YOU! Bye, Mom!"

"BEEP BEEP BEEP"

He hung up the phone quickly and grinned. "_Mom says OK!"_

"_Whew! OK, boys, let's go!" _Jie's mom said and smiled.

-

As soon as they got to where the party was, following Jie's mom into the back, both kids laden down with boxes and bags, Reno and Jie found themselves mobbed.

"_Lei Nuo, Jie Guang, put those over--"_ Jie's mom began, when:

"_AAAAAA, they're so **cute**!_"

And then it was pretty much over for work being accomplished in the kitchen for about ten minutes. Everything ground to a halt, and Reno and Jie found themselves surrounded by about fifteen Wutai women of all different ages, squealing at them in all different dialects of Wutai.

"_Ningyou mitai kawaii_!"

"_Keoi dei_ _han ho oi_!"

And since they were both still laden down with bags and boxes, they had no way of defending themselves against all the hands coming out to touch them, patting their hair and cheeks.

Jie looked ready to start spitting fire any second, which thoroughly baffled Reno. As far as Reno was concerned, this was the _greatest thing ever_. He grinned up at the women, and they started squealing even more about how _piaoliang_--whatever the hell that was; had to be good, he figured--he was.

"_We gotta put these down!" _ Jie finally said in irritation. And almost immediately, the boxes and bags were whisked away, but without Jie or Reno moving, so they were still surrounded by woman all trying to touch them.

"_He looks so much like Xiao Zhen_!" one woman cooing over Jie said while stroking his hair, and Jie flushed red.

"_Well, she **is** my mom!"_ he snapped, batting ineffectually at hands.

Reno, meanwhile, was being bombarded for entirely different reasons.

"Maji de jige na no!" one woman asked, and Reno blinked at her in utter confusion.

"What? _What_?"

"_Is this really _tiansheng de _red_ _head_ fa?" another said, stroking his raggedly cut hair.

"_Yeah, it is_!" Reno said, figuring out mostly what they wanted to know, and also figuring that had to be the stupidest question _ever_, what, he was nine, no way could he dye his hair yet.

Then the question didn't seem so stupid, when all of the squealed and started playing with his hair _more_ with their soft hands and all of them trying to hug him, and man, he liked that _lots_, and anything that got him _that_ reaction was a good thing.

And now it was time to milk it.

"So...'my hair's red' is 'hong tou fa' right?" he said, trying to put it all together. "'Tiansheng de hong tou fa'_, that's right_, yeah?"

He remembered Jie's mom thinking him trying to speak Wutai had been the cutest thing _ever_ when he started, and it was nice to see yeah, Wutai women still thought it was cute and reacted with that "AWWW SO CUTE!" face that usually got him food from Jie's mom but was now totally getting him petted and hugged, and yeah, boobs felt _really_ nice and he could get used to this.

"_Ma, make them let me go!"_ Jie yelped, and Reno decided "nuts" must run in the Qian family.

Luckily, the women thought that was cute.

"_How much _ya sui qian _did you get_?" one woman asked Jie, stroking his head like one would a pet.

Jie pouted a little. "_It's just me and my mom, so I only got _ya sui qian _from her_. _And only twenty gil._"

Reno blinked. "_What's _'ya...yasu...ya sui qian'?" he asked in Wutai.

"New year money!" Jie said, grinning.

Reno blinked. "New year money? _What's that?"_

Now Jie stared at him. "_You don't get new year money!"_ he said, looking shocked, his mouth hanging open.

Reno shook his head. _"No, don't get. You're lucky_," he said, completely jealous.

"_Aww, you don't have any new year money_?" one of the women said. She looked ready to say something else, when someone hissed, "_The boss is coming_!" Suddenly and distressingly, the women freaked and scattered.

"Thank Odin," Jie muttered under his breath, looking slightly frazzled. He tried to smooth down his hair, looking irritated.

"Freak," Reno muttered.

"Am not."

"Are so."

"_Am NOT_!"

"_Are SO_!"

"_Yeah, well, you're..._you're motorcycle!"

"...Bwuh ha?" Reno said, giving Jie a "your momma dropped you on the head when you were a baby" look.

Jie looked smug. "What does motorcycle say?"

"Uh, 'vroom'?" Reno said, still looking at Jie like he was nuts.

"No. It says '_ben ben ben ben ben_'," Jie said, and stuck out his tongue. Reno blinked, then burst out laughing.

"Motorcycles say _ben ben ben ben ben_! HAHAHAHA!" he said, getting the joke. "Good o--!"

"..._Who are these children and why are they here?"_ a voice boomed. Reno and Jie turned to see some old fart glaring at them.

Before either of them could say anything, Jie's mom rushed up, and started bowing apologetically. _"I'm sorry. This is my son Jie Guang and his friend Lei Nuo. They helped me bring things. They won't get in the way_," she said, sounding nervous and talking faster, and Reno didn't understand any more. The older guy looked down at the two of them, and Reno decided he really didn't like him.

"_They had better not. But you know_..." he began, looking thoughtful, a weird little smile on his face. _"Well, too bad the little _yang guizi_ doesn't speak Wutai_."

Reno's eyes narrowed. _"I do so!"_ he said, not all that sure what "yang guizi" was but not liking the way the guy was looking at him when he said it.

The weird little smile got bigger, and he turned to Jie's mom. He started talking really fast, a little too fast for Reno to catch all of it, but he understood enough--he understood the "get them out or make them work" bit, and something about him being cute, which put Reno on instant edge.He didn't know what all it was exactly that the guy wanted them to do, but when an old fart was saying you were cute and wanted you to do something or get out, well, that never boded well, and every instinct was telling him to cut and run now. The only thing keeping him from kicking the old fart in the balls and taking off was that Jie's mom's hand had dropped on his and Jie's shoulder, and damn if Reno could figure out how someone with such thin arms could have such a _really strong grip_.

Plus, he didn't think Jie's mom would sell him out. After all, Reno's own mom was a junkie and would do pretty much anything for cash, and she'd _still_ kicked out the guy who offered her money for Reno once.

_And_ she'd lifted his wallet as she did so, which Reno still thought was the coolest thing _ever_.

Jie's mom was still doing that bowing thing, and next thing Reno knew, her deathgrip had gone from his shoulder to his _head_ and she was pushing him down in a bow, hissing _"Thank him!"_ at the two of them under her breath in that "Do as I say NOW" voice.

"_Thank you_!" both Jie and Reno piped in with, and kept bowed until Jie's mom let up on their heads.

Once the old fart was gone, she turned on them. "_You two! Don't act up or_...!" she said, not even bothering to finish the threat or needing to. _"Do exactly as I say!_"

They nodded, and soon found themselves standing at the entrance to the hall at the doorway, saying the same canned "_Happy New Year!"_ and something Reno didn't quite understand but it sure _seemed_ canned so he said "Gong xi fai cai!" with a smile to everyone who came in and offering to take coats.

It was boring at first, but Reno had to admit--this was pretty sweet, because _everyone_ reacted the same way to his Wutai, and yeah, he was loving it. And after a little while, even Jie got into it, although his smile was way more like his mom's the way she looked in her make-up, all cool and untouchable and pretty in a way that made you have to look at it. Reno was a little impressed at how Jie gave off "I'm better than all of you so don't even think about touching me" haughtiness. Impressed and thinking Jie was crazy, 'cause all this touching and cooing? Best. Thing. Ever. And the bigger a smile Reno gave and bigger he made his eyes, the more people, men and women, just went _nuts_. And everyone liked his hair. He'd never really thought about it before, but man, if he could get this reaction, yeah, his hair needed more attention. Maybe he'd start brushing it some or something.

He kinda figured, though, that they were being used 'cause they were cute, same way as Jie's mom had been put out in the lobby as well. It wasn't her job, but she was pretty, she was real pretty, and Reno knew people liked to look at pretty. He sure did.

Eventually it seemed like everyone who was supposed to be there was, and he and Jie escaped back into the kitchen.

"_The _wu shi_ is in an hour and a half_," Jie's mom said when they got in. "Ruguo _you promise to be good, you can go_."

"_We will, we will, we totally will_!" Jie said, grinning excited. Reno started at them, not sure what a "wu shi" was, but hey, he'd find out eventually. Although really, he was happy being here, in the kitchens. It was warm, everything smelled really good, and people were _still_ patting his head, real quick, playing with his hair, as they went by.

Jie's mother smiled at them, then immediately loaded them both down with a tray. "_You two are _popular_. Everyone wants to see you two._" She looked proud of the two of them, and Reno and Jie grinned back at her.

Then she gave them both a shove to the door out of the kitchen.

-

Jie's mom had been right; it seemed like _everyone_ at the damned dinner-party-thing wanted to fawn over the two of them. Jie kept throwing Reno pitying looks, since once people found out he could say more that "Happy New Year!" in Wutai, everyone wanted to hear him talking. Reno was still convinced Jie was out of his mind, to think all this attention was some kind of _bad_ thing.

Although he was beginning to suspect that "piaoliang" meant "pretty," and if it did, next person who called him that was getting kicked in the crotch. Well, if he thought he could get away with it and not have Jie's mom kill him. Which she would, so no. Still, everyone kept calling _him_ "piaoliang" but Jie "hao kan"--"good looking", and this was getting on his nerves.

"_What's _piaoliang_?"_ he finally hissed at Jie in irritation after he got it but Jie got "good looking."

Jie started snickering and looked smug. "_It means you look like a girl. _Piaoliang_ is for girls._"

"_Not 'cute'?"_

Jie shook his head. "_Boys and girls can be cute. But only giiiiiirls are _piaoliang_,"_ Jie said, face lighting up in an evil, teasing grin.

"Drop dead," Reno, making a rude gesture.

"_You _qu si ba!" Jie said, sticking out his tongue.

"No, you _qu si ba_," Reno said.

"_No, you_."

"_You first_."

"You're stupid."

"You're a motorcycle."

Jie started snickering and Reno joined in a second later. Then Reno's eyes got big. "Hey, hey! The...the thing! That your mom said was in an hour and a half! It's almost time!" he said, pointing at a clock.

Jie stared at him. "Hunh? Slower!" he snapped, sticking out his tongue. "You talk too fast!"

"The **thing**!" Reno said, irritated. "That your mom said we could go see! The wu something!"

"Aahh! The _wu shi_!" Jie said, mouth falling open. "C'mon, c'mon, we gotta hurry! Tell Ma, then go see!"

Reno nodded. "Yeah!" They rushed back to the kitchens and searched around for Jie's mom before finding her snapping angrily at one of the other cooks.

"Ma! Ma!"

"_What_!" she snapped, turning to them.

Jie ignored his mother's bad mood, being used to it. "_Ma! It's almost time for the _wu shi_! Can we go? Hunh? Can we, can we, can we_?"

"_Ah! The _wu shi! _That starts soon_!" She looked at them carefully. "_You promise no getting into trouble?_"

"_We promise_!" both of them piped in with.

"_Jie Guang, get my purse. I have a _di tu _of where it is_. Ruguo _you get lost, come back here_."

"OK!" Jie said, and ran off to get his mom's purse.

While he was gone, Jie's mom smiled down at Reno, and the girl she had been yelling at slipped off. "_Having fun_?"

Reno grinned. "_Yeah! One guy gave me candy and a gil_!" he said, bouncing. "_I really want to see the _wu shi! _Jie says it's really cool_!"

"_I think you'll like it. But no getting into trouble_!" she said, suddenly stern. "_And no fights_!"

"_Yes, Auntie Qian_," he said, rolling his eyes. Before she could get mad, though, he gave her a big, cheeky grin. She swatted at him halfheartedly, smiling faintly.

Jie came back then with her purse, and she dug around for a bit until she pulled out a slick, shiny sheet of paper. "_Here, here's the _di tu," she said, spreading out the small map. She pointed to one of the main streets, and Jie and Reno both started at it. Reno had no idea what all he was looking at, since he had never been above the Plate and everything was written in Wutai characters. He looked at it more closely, and saw the street names also had English, but basically everything else was in Wutai. "_We're here_," she said, circling the place in read. "_And the _wu shi _is here_," she said, and circled it. She drew them a path also in red, then handed the map to Jie. She looked at them carefully. "_Will you be OK_?"

They nodded.

"_OK, then_--" she began, when one of the people working came up.

"_Are they going now_?" the woman asked. Jie's mom looked slightly confused, and nodded.

"_Yes, to see the _wu shi," she said, blinking.

"_Can you wait just a minute_?" she said, smiling down at Jie and Reno.

"_Uh...sure, OK_," Jie said, looking just as confused as his mom.

The woman scurried off, and few minutes later, they were surrounded again. One woman pulled out two red envelopes, and Jie's face lit up.

"_You two have a happy new year, OK_?" the woman said, smiling at them. "_It's not much, but we all hope you enjoy it_," she finished, and handed each of them an envelope.

Jie grinned. "Thank you!" he yelled, jumping up and down excitedly. Reno stared at him.

"Uh...OK."

"Open it, dummy!" Jie said, sticking out his tongue. Reno looked at the pretty red envelope with two Wutai characters on it written in gold.

"_What's this say_?" he said, looking at Jie's mom.

She smiled. "_It says 'Lei Nuo'. Your name._"

"Oh, wow, cool!" he said, grinning at his name in characters. That was a lot cooler looking that "Reno" was, that was for sure. "Jie! Jie! Lemme see your name in Wutai!" he said, holding out his hand. Jie held up the envelope.

"...My name's cooler," Reno said, sticking his tongue out.

"...yeah, well, you suck." Jie said, rolling his eyes. "And open it!"

Reno blinked and remembered yeah, he hadn't looked in yet. He opened it, and his eyes got big as he saw all the money in it. "Oh, wow. This is for me? Really? I mean, really. For me?" he said, too shocked to use Wutai. "_This mine_? _You giving me_? _Really?_"

The women nodded. "_It's new year's_!"

Reno couldn't keep a big, wobbly grin off his face. "Thank you! _Thank you! _Oh, wow, _thanks!"_ he said, and started bouncing. He'd never had so much money in his hands in his life, this was so great, he was gonna be able to get stuff, this ROCKED.

"Xing li! Jie's mom hissed at them, and out of nowhere her hands came up, one on each their heads, and pushed down so they bowed and bowed low enough. "_And say thank you properly_!" she snapped.

"_Thank you very much_!" both boys said, bent over and not able to move.

"_Better_," Jie's mom said, letting them up.

The women, all smiles and giggles, headed back to their jobs, and Reno just kept staring at the money. There had to be at least forty gil. Easy. He could barely even believe it and was terrified that at any second, the women would come back and take it from him, saying it was a mistake or a joke.

"_Well, what are you going to _mai?" Jie's mom said, breaking into Reno's awed contemplation of _all that money_.

"Hunh?" he said, shaking his head a little.

"_What are you going to _mai?"

He just stared at her, still overwhelmed plus not understanding what exactly she was asking him. He felt a little lost, truth be told, and finally managed to move his mouth some, but not actually produce more and a choked, "I--!"

Jie saved him, suddenly getting a big grin on his face.

"_Ma! Ma! Can we _mai baozhu?"

Jie's mom got the scary look. "Jue dui _NOT_ mai," she said.

"_But Maaaaaaa, it's **new year's**_!" Jie whined.

"_And _baozhu _are dangerous_!"

"_But we'll be careful! We will! I promise_!" Jie needled, sticking out his lip. "_It's new years! And...and..._" His eyes landed on Reno and he grinned as if he knew he had a trump card. "_And_ _Reno_ lian _one_ gen baozhu dou cong lai mei fang guo, _yo_! _C'mon Mama, pleeeeeeeeeeease_!" Jie pleaded, eyes all big. Reno had no idea what it was Jie wanted, but he figured Jie had never led him wrong, so he added his "_Pleeeeeeease_!" in with Jie, making his eyes as big as he could.

_"They're dangerous and you two will _jue duibaozha _something!"_

"_But...but...ma, I'll be careful! I won't _baozha _anything, I **promise**! Ma, Reno_ cong lai _not_ fang guo baozhu!"

"_Yeah! I not_ fang guo baozhu!" Reno said, starting to get over his shock and joining in with whatever Jie was trying to convince his mom to let them do. He wasn't completely sure what he was saying, but figured it couldn't hurt, and he made his lip stick out a little and his eyes real big and pleading, so he looked even more pathetic.

"_Pleeeeeeeeeease_!" they both said at the same time.

"...ARGH!" Jie's mom said in exasperation, and both Jie and Reno fought a grin. They knew that look, and a few minutes later were running off to see the "wu shi" thing AND to get the mysterious "baozhu" that Jie had been talking about. Jie was grinning and bouncing and yelling, "_Baozhu_! _Baozhu_!" and Reno just piped in along with him, not knowing what a "baozhu" was, but figuring it had to be pretty good to be getting _that_ reaction, and he'd probably like it.

-

They, amazingly enough, didn't get lost at all. All they had to do was follow the crowd. They got to the main street and managed to squeeze through to near the front by virtue of still being small.

"It's starting!" Jie said, grinning and coming down from his tip-toes. Reno could hear the faint sounds of drums and music, and he poked his head over to look where Jie was pointing.

And then, the dancers showed up, and Reno spent the next thirty minutes with his jaw hanging open, watching them jumping and dancing and moving the head of whatever the heck animal it was supposed to be, heck if Reno knew, attacked bunches of greens with red envelopes hanging from them in front of businesses, acting like they were chewing up the greens but leaving the money.

Reno was disappointed when they were no longer in sight, and was about to ask if they could go after them, when he started hearing POP! POP! POP! noises, and Jie's face lit up.

"Baozhu!" Jie said, looking around. _"OK, I hear them. There's gotta be _mou ren_ selling them!"_ he said.

Reno nodded, still feeling clueless and not knowing what "baozhu" or "mou ren" were and kind of wanting to go after the dancers. "Yeah, OK," thinking that the baozhu had better be better than the dancers or he was gonna punch Jie. Jie grabbed his hand and tugged Reno after him, following where the popping sounds had been coming from. He stopped from time to time to ask people about them, and eventually, they found what they were looking for.

"Gil!" Jie said, holding out his hand.

Reno scowled at him. "What for?"

Jie rolled his eyes. "_You can't _maibaozhu_ without money, dummy!"_ he said.

Reno stuck out his tongue. "Can't we just--" he began, and cut it off at the glare he got from Jie. "Fine," he grumbled, and pulled out his envelope and handed over a gil, looking pained.

And minute or so later, Jie had grabbed him by the arm and was tugging Reno after him, and bag in his hands.

"This is _baozhu_!" Jie said with a grin, opening the bag when they got to a relatively clear place and proudly holding up a string of firecrackers.

"What are those? What do they do?" Reno said, waiting to be impressed.

"_Watch_!" Jie said with a grin.

A minute or so later, Reno was suitably impressed. "Oh man that is SO COOL!" he said, grinning his head off and eyes shining. "My turn, my turn! _My turn!_" he said, holding out his hand for the lighter and a string of firecrackers. Jie handed them over and Reno lit them gleefully, grinning at the loud string of "POP! POP! POP!" that came out.

-

Reno had thought nothing could have beaten the money or the firecrackers, but it turns out that the best part came near the end of the evening. Jie had grabbed his arm and said, "_The _yanhuo _start soon! Come on, we have to get up high for this_" and Reno had followed. They scrambled up to the roof of a nearby building, and Reno almost fell OFF, at the first explosion in the sky.

"Sweet Shiva!" he cussed, wide-eyed. "Jie! Jie! Hoshityou see that_?"_ he said, grabbing Jie's arm and pointing at the fading colors, eyes still huge and jaw hanging open. Never in his whole life had he seen anything like that.

"_What, the _yanhuo?"

"_That's _yanhuo?" Reno said, pointing at the next one that went off, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "Oh, **wow**!"

_"Yeah. _Yanhuo_. What, you _cong lai _don't see_ guoyanhuo?" Jie said, trying to act cool.

This time the words in that kind of sentence all made sense, after all the stuff about firecrackers, and Reno stuck out his tongue. "_I never left under _the Plate_, stupid! Of **course** I've never seen fireworks!_"

Just then, there was another explosion in the sky, and Reno stared up at it, eyes wide and shining and mouth hanging open. They stayed on the roof until the last of the fireworks faded, Reno staring transfixed both at the fireworks and the sky he never saw.

Finally, Jie poked him. "C'mon, Ma get worried," he said, and Reno nodded slowly.

"Yeah, OK. Man, that was **so awesome**," he said, not able to put into words how it had looked and how exciting the booms had been or how pretty the explosions in the sky and the streaks of color flying through the air.

"Yeah. Ones in Wutai is better," Jie said. "Bigger. But this awesome, yeah!"

Reno nodded. He closed his eyes for a minute, and could still see the colors in the sky in his mind. "Yeah, let's go," he said, and carefully, they climbed of the roof, firecrackers firmly in hand and visions of fireworks still in their heads.

-

Reno didn't realize how sleepy he was until they got on the train back to sector five. Jie fell asleep first, leaning on his mom's arm, and Reno was feeling drowsy himself. He was still holding onto his firecrackers and the envelope with his new year's money tightly, as if they would vanish. He blinked sleepily, shaking his head a little to stay awake.

Jie's mom smiled at him. _"Did you _fang _one _gen _firecracker_?" she asked, an amused smile on her face.

"_Yeah_!" Reno said as it all clicked. " _I did! I lit a firecracker_!" he said, perking up. "_It was so _cool_! And the _wushi,_ when they jumped and ate the _greens _but not the red...uh...you know, thing the money is in, and fireworks! They were so...so..._" he stopped, struggling for the right word. They weren't "cute" and they weren't "good-looking," but for the life of him, he couldn't think of what it might... "piaoliang," he finished, looking at her to see if she started laughing because the word was wrong.

"_They are, aren't they?"_ she said instead. "Yuan lai, _I was a girl, I loved fireworks. I thought that were very _piaoliang."

"_Yeah, they_--" Reno started, and then a huge yawn interrupted his words. He raised one hand to sleepily rub his eyes. "_They are really _piaoliang." He yawned again, then blinked at Jie's mom sleepily.

"_Did you have fun_?" she asked.

"_Yeah_!" he said, nodding.

"_Good_," she said, and lapsed into silence again. Reno stared down at the fireworks and envelope in his hands, and smiled faintly.

The next thing he knew, Jie's mom was shaking him awake. He blinked a few times owlishly, and saw her waking Jie up as well. She was saying something, but he was too sleepy to catch it all. Still, it looked like it was about time for them to be getting off the train, so he roused himself up, and when the train stopped, he and Jie sleepily followed Jie's mom off the train.

When they got to Jie's place, he was so sleepy he couldn't keep his eyes open.

"_Call your mother and tell her you're staying over,_" Jie's mom said gently. Halfway back, Jie had gotten sluggish enough that she had picked him up to carry him, and Reno had felt unaccountably jealous of that.

...Then she'd put Jie down, saying he was waaaay too heavy for her to carry when she had all the other stuff, and he had perfectly good legs. Jie had made a face, but gamely started walking again.

"Nnngh," Reno said to that, rubbing his eyes. Jie's mom put all the bags she had down, then Jie held up his arms and gave her a pathetic look.

"_Yes, yes_," she said, and picked Jie up. He rested his head on her shoulder. "Lei Nuo, bian _I take Jie to bed_, bian _call your mom_."

"'Kay," he mumbled sleepily, sniffling slightly. He headed to the telephone as Jie's mom headed off with Jie. He picked up the phone and dialed, knowing what he would get. He didn't even feel like bothering, but knew Jie's mom had ears like a bat.

"Hi, mom," he said, ignoring the disconnected message. "Uh-hunh. Yeah. Mmm. I had fun. Is it OK if I stay at Jie's tonight? OK. OK. See you tomorrow," he said, giving pauses long enough to imagine what his mom would have said if, you know, the phone hadn't been disconnected and she been not jonesing or strung out, and finally hung up. Jie's mom hadn't come back yet, she he said down on a chair and waited.

He didn't realize he had fallen asleep until he opened his eyes and realized his head was against something warm and nice-smelling. "Hunh?" he let out sleepily, then realized why he felt so warm. Jie's mom had picked him up and was carrying him.

Jie's mom said something, he didn't know what, and his eyes slid shut, relaxing against her, head against her neck. She carried him to Jie's room and then started unbuttoning his clothes, moving his arms as she pulled the clothes off him then pulled a T-shirt over his head, changing him for bed. She patted his head and tucked him into the bed next to Jie, who hadn't woken up through the whole thing.

"Night," Reno mumbled sleepily, curling up on his side under the covers. If Jie's mom said anything or not, he missed it, asleep as soon as the word was out of his mouth.

-

Reno woke up not quite knowing where he was, but figuring it out quick when he rubbed his eyes and saw Jie asleep next to him, one of Jie's arms slung over Reno's chest. Reno wanted to go back to sleep--it was so _warm_, with all the covers and Jie--but the smells coming out of the kitchen were _really, really good_.

"Wake up!" he said, shoving at Jie. "Wake up!"

"_Don't wanna,"_ Jie mumbled, waving one hand in the air.

"Get up, Jie!" Reno said, pushing at him. _"Breakfast!"_

Jie made a rude gesture and went back to sleep. Reno rolled his eyes and stumbled out of bed towards the kitchen.

Reno couldn't help but giggle when he saw Jie's mom. Jie's anti-morning reaction seemed to completely come from his mother; her hair was impressively morning-head and she was shuffling along like she wasn't quite awake yet.

"Morning!" Reno said cheerfully; Jie's mom looked at him like she wanted to smack him upside the head just for being so happy so early.

"Mregrhegh," she mumbled at him, scratching at the back of her calf with the toe of the other foot, and Reno didn't even try to hide his snicker.

He was rewarded with a smack on the head. But then came a plate of food, so all in all, it was worth it.

"_Jie Guang!_" she finally yelled back towards Jie's bedroom. "_Lei Nuo is going to eat all the food!_"

There was a loud thump, and then Jie came stumbling out. He managed to get to the kitchen and sit down and begin eating, but he didn't look completely awake. Neither did Jie's mom. She sat down and kind of shoveled the food into her mouth with the chopsticks, opening her eyes just enough to see. By the time she had finished, she looked more awake.

Once Reno ate until his stomach felt ready to burst, he realized he should probably go home. He didn't really want to, but he also didn't want to push his luck. So after he ate, he changed into his clothes from yesterday and headed back into the kitchen.

"_I should go home,"_ he said, shrugging some. _"Thanks for yesterday, it was so much fun_," he said, scratching the back of his neck and giving Jie's mom a smile.

"_Thank you for your help_," she said, nodding faintly. "_Ah! Your firecrackers and new year money!_" she said, getting up. She left and came back a moment later with a bag. "_It's in here. Be careful, OK_?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him. She handed him the bag and a box she took from the refrigerator. _"And I packed some baozi for you and your mother."_

"_Thanks. And I'll be careful_," he said.

"Gong xi fa cai, Lei Nuo," she said, giving him a sleepy smile.

He grinned again. "Gong xi fa cai. And _thank you_! And Jie, see you later, OK?"

"OK!" Jie said, yawning. "Gong xi," he yawned again, "fa cai."

"Yeah yeah, you, too," he said, and waved good-bye.

Reno was slightly nervous all the way home, but figured it was way too early for the thieves and perverts to be out, so he should be OK. As it was, though, he didn't completely relax until he got home. When he got home, it was empty as he expected. And frickin' cold. He put his bag on the table and opened the box of baozi. There were six buns in there, so he took out half of them and wrapped them up for his mom, figuring as cold as it was, they'd keep even if he left them out. The rest he left in the box, and took them and the bag to his room and to his hiding place.

Reno sat down in front of the hiding place and put in the box carefully, the opened the bag and took out his firecrackers. He grinned and put them in just as carefully, then took out the envelope of new year's money. He traced one of his fingers along the golden characters that were his name in Wutai. Lei. Nuo. Maybe one day, he'd ask how to write it or something.

Carefully, Reno put it in with his firecrackers and his New Year money, and closed them up with a smile.

Yesterday had been the _best day ever_.

-

Reno knew it was never a good sign when his mom was singing. If mom was singing, she was in a good mood, and if she was in a good mood, it meant she was _high_.

Although if his choice was "mom high" and "mom jonesing," "mom high" tended to win out, because mom was all fucked up when she was jonesing, and it used to scare the crap out of Reno when he was younger, and it still made him want to hole up in his room under his covers and try not to cry. He also hated when she was jonesing because he had to really take care of her, steal extra food and make her eat, and sometimes clean up after she would throw up whatever he made her eat. When mom was high, she just did crazy things, but when she was jonesing, she got that scary, desperate look in her eyes, the look that made Reno glad the guy that tried to buy him off her didn't ask when she hadn't had her fix.

"I'm home..." Reno said tentatively, closing the door behind him as he went into their apartment, waiting to see how fucked up things were gonna be. She hadn't been home that morning, hadn't been home for _days_, and he hadn't expected her to be home when he got there.

Well, hadn't expected her to be home and be high as a kite. Still, this beat her being home and jonesing. Kinda. This way, at least, there was less puking and sweating and shaking.

"Reno!" his mom said, high as a kite and happy as can be. She stumbled over to him and threw her arms around him, which made Reno go tense, wondering what was going on. "Reno, you're a good boy, you know that?" she said, hugging him tighter and kissing his cheek. "And mommy loves you so, so much. You're such a good boy!"

Reno hugged his mom back, a wavering little smile on his face. Mom was being weird, she normally didn't pay this much attention to him when she was high, but...but it was nice, it was really nice, it was great, to have her acting like she cared.

She hugged him again then let him go and went back to the couch and plopped down, singing again and lolling her head back. Reno stared at her, with that same unsure smile on his face.

"M-mom?" he started. "Are you hungry? 'Cause I got some food. In the kitchen. You hungry?" he said.

His mom smiled and waved a hand in the air. "Mommy's alllll OK, sweetie! You're a good boy, Reno." She went back to singing.

"Well, if you want it, it's in the kitchen, OK?" he said, then headed to his room before something ruined it.

He got to his room and saw instantly that something was very, very wrong. He scrambled to where his stash was and skidded to his knees, then just stared at the space where his baozi and new year's money had been. His firecrackers were still there, but everything else...

Before he could stop himself, his breath hitched, and then he was crying for all he was worth, as he suddenly realized why he was "a good boy" and why "Mommy" loved him.

In the background, he could still hear his mother singing.

He crept out of his room and into his mother's, and swiped the first small thing he could find that was _hers_. Then he headed back to his room, grabbed his firecrackers and snuck out the window.

Jie may have promised not to blow anything up with them, but he sure hadn't.


	5. Orders

Chapter Five - Orders

"What the _shit_ is this!" Reno said, staring at the books and papers Tseng had just put in front of him. "You _gotta_ be kidding me."

Tseng only smiled. "Indeed, I am not. Your fluency in Wutai could be an incredible asset, especially with ShinRa researching further uses for materia. However, the fact that you can not _read_ Wutai is unacceptable. Northern is not the standard dialect anymore, so you must learn to read to be fully utilized."

Reno just stared in growing horror at the pages upon pages of writing practice sheets and books, one called "Remembering Wutai Characters (with Northern, Western, and Yamatan readings)," one called "Let's Learn Wuzi!" and, most ominously, one called "A Wutai Reader: Graded Lessons From Beginning Northern Vernacular to Advanced Classical (Book One)."

"...Boss, look, I can't even stand to read and write in English, let alone _Wutai_, I ain't even held a brush in years! I can write maybe ten characters and the most I can read is a _menu_; you _must_ be crazy! I can't learn to read Wutai!"

"Consider it an order," Tseng said, his voice oddly cheerful in the face of Reno's growing desperation. "We need people who can read Wutai because of the wealth of information on materia that is _only_ in Wutai. The Turks are and have been, after all, more than simple thugs, and have had more varied duties. You will learn a minimum of ten characters a week. Although it's preferable that you learn to write, reading is more important, and so, _for now_, you can focus on simply recognizing the characters instead of being able to write them."

Reno continued staring in open-mouthed, horror-filled disbelief at the books. "What if I quit?" he finally said.

"Then I have you killed."

"...Ya _do_ realize that's lookin' like the better option, yeah?" Reno said, sounding desperate.

"Well, shall I leave you to it, then?" Tseng asked, sounding amused. "Good luck," he said, and left. And once the door was shut, Rude was quite sure he heard the sound of Tseng _laughing_.

Reno seemed oblivious to this, still staring in open-mouthed, horror-filled disbelief at the books, his mouth moving but no sound coming out.

"Well," Rude said after about ten minutes of Reno wordlessly staring at the books with his mouth moving uselessly, "You _did_ say you weren't a dumb thug."

"I take it back," Reno said, still staring at the books with horror, eyes huge. "I'm a dumb, illiterate thug too stupid to hold a pen. OK? No frickin' way, yo."

"I'm sure you will surpass everyone's expectations."

Reno looked up at Rude, eyes huge and pleading. "Can we go back to when me 'surpassing expectations' was me showin' up on time and sober?"

Rude didn't even try to suppress the smile. "Not up to me, partner."

Reno thudded his head against his desk and groaned. "You know what, partner? This sucks. This sucks the big hairy one. This sucks so bad it _blows_, yo," he finished, and banged his head against his desk again.

Rude got to ShinRa headquarters a little early one day, as was fairly normal for him, but was very surprised to find the door to the office he shared with Reno locked. He frowned at the door a bit, then finally knocked on the door.

"Unless yer bringin' booze or a knife for me to kill myself with, GO AWAY!" came a muffled voice from behind the door.

"Sorry, no booze on the clock, partner," Rude said, and went in when the door beeped and opened.

What he saw threw him for a complete loop. Reno surrounded by empty cans of soda, coffee, and papers that had been scribbled all over. And books--all the books on Wutai characters that Tseng had given Reno the month before--open and spread out all over the desk. There were even some empty boxes of Wutai take-out littering the floor, chopsticks sticking out from one box haphazardly.

"Kill me. I'm beggin' you, just KILL ME," Reno moaned, putting down his pencil and rubbing his hand. "Tseng wasn't kidding, yo. He was dead serious. Yesterday, when he called me into his office right before it was supposed to be goin'-home time? Yeah. He gave me a _test_, man, a _test_, to make sure I was learning _wuzi_."

"...Well, are you?"

"_Fuck, no_! I figured he wasn't for real serious, expecting at least ten characters a week. I mean, there's just no way, yeah? Well, I was wrong." He thudded his head against his desk. "After the test, he went over to his computer and pushed some buttons, then printed out my 'revised' pay statement. He _docked my pay_, man!" Reno moaned. "And said he'd dock it more if I didn't catch up by _tomorrow_." He gestured at his desk, looking more like he'd rather light it on fire. "I got _one day_ to learn this shit."

He groaned again. "I ain't smart enough for this."

"That's not true," Rude said, going to his desk to sit down.

"Is so. Ain't Tseng got it figured out? In this partnership, _you're_ the one with the brains and _I'm_ the one who hits things with sticks 'til they bleed. _You_ think, I make shit go boom. Tryin' to make _me_ think, is, like, upsettin' the natural balance or somethin'."

"Which ShinRa happens to be good at," Rude said, quirking up an eyebrow.

Reno moaned. "...Aw, fuck, you got a point."

Rude couldn't help letting out a faint laugh. Reno's ever-expressive face showed that Reno looked ready to cry or beat something--the man had obviously learned how to make the "I am helpless, help me!" face, and it was working. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah. Lose three inches and thirty pounds, get really pale, put on a red wig, and TAKE THE DAMN TEST for me. You can learn this shit in a day, easy," he mumbled, burying his face in his arms on the desk.

"I can't do that, but I can help you study. Did you make flashcards?"

Reno raised his head up enough to peer over his arms up at Rude with big, bright eyes. "Flash_what_? You wanna start speakin' English now, man?"

Rude stared at Reno, slightly nonplussed. "...You've never really ever studied for anything, have you?"

Reno stared at him, and Rude recognized that look--it was his "What the hell planet are you from, dumbass?" look.

Rude let out a faint sigh, seeing his work cut out for him. "OK. First thing you need are study skills," Rude said, then stood up. "I'm going to go get you some blank cards to make flashcards. You were here all night, weren't you?"

Reno nodded, looking pathetic.

"While I'm gone, go get yourself some breakfast. And...perhaps brush your teeth."

Rude was expecting the empty can that came flying at his head and ducked accordingly, but, as he was beginning to suspect was the Way Things Were, it still connected.

"Here, catch," Reno said as soon as Rude came back. Rude instinctively grabbed the small bag that came flying at him, almost dropping the bag he was carrying.

"What's this?"

"Figured I owe ya," Reno said, shrugging slightly and giving Rude a lopsided grin. "You know, for offerin' to help me and all," he said, smile now looking a little nervous and uncertain. He ducked his head, the gesture almost a little out of place.

"Thanks," Rude said, giving Reno a faint smile, then glancing at the bag. It was a bag of mini chocolates, and Rude opened the bag as he walked over to Reno's desk, not realizing he was doing so. He stuck a piece of chocolate in his mouth before he even had sat down, and his eyes fluttered closed behind his sunglasses. "Good chocolate," he said, sitting down.

"Glad you approve."

Rude began riffling through the bag he had brought, finally pulling out pens and blank note cards. "These," he said, handing them to Reno, "are going to be your flashcards."

"You still ain't told me what the fuck flashcards are, partner," Reno said, making a face.

"I'm about to," Rude answered, and popped another chocolate into his mouth.

"No, I think you're about to need some 'special time' with that bag of chocolates, man," Reno said, snickering.

"Hmm? I don't understand," Rude said, popping in another chocolate and a tiny smile crossing his face as he did so.

"Nothing, man," Reno said, snickering more. "Nothing. Anyway, flashcards. I'm guessin' I'm not gonna be playing poker with 'em, am I?"

"No," Rude said, raising an eyebrow as he opened another chocolate. "Flashcards are used when you have information you have to memorize. On one side, you write the information that you need to know the meaning of, and on the other, the meaning."

Reno stared at him blankly. "Your mouth is movin', and words are comin' out, but I ain't got the first clue what you're sayin'."

Rude rolled his eyes. "On one side, write the Wutai character, but write what it means on the other side."

"Why didn't you just say that in the first place?" Reno said, rolling his eyes himself. "You can't never just keep it simple, can you?"

Rude ignored him, popping another chocolate and pulling out a pen.

"...You sure you don't want some private time with that chocolate, man?"

Rude stared at Reno, perplexed, and Reno snorted. "Nevermind, man, nevermind. Anyway. Wuzi on one side, meaning on the other, yeah?"

"Right. ...Hmm. Maybe write how to say it in Wutai. That might work better, since you already know what it all means."

For some reason, Reno's face fell when Rude said that. "Uh...yeah. OK."

Rude frowned slightly. "Something wrong, partner?"

Reno waved his hands in the air. "Nothin'. Nothin'."

Rude's frown deepened slightly, and Reno seemed to shrink in his chair. "...Do you know how to write Wutai at all?"

"I know the basics," Reno said defensively, making a face. "I know all the _bushou_, or least, I used to."

"...The what?" Rude said, blinking slightly. He reached in the bag for another chocolate and frowned, then looked into the bag, wondering where all of them had gone. He picked the bag up and held it upside down, shaking it.

"Ain't no more gonna come out just 'cause you're pouting at the bag, man," Reno said, snickering again. "I think that was a record, how fast you ate those."

"Regardless," Rude said, sighing slightly and throwing the empty bag away. "What's a...what it was you said. Boo-show, or something."

Reno stared at Rude. "Do me a favor, man. Never try to speak Wutai. And it's _bushou_."

"Yes, yes. That," Rude said, rolling his eyes.

"It's...uh...I dunno, I don't think there's a word in English for it. It's the part of a wuzi that makes up a wuzi."

"You are aware that that made no sense, correct?"

Reno tossed a can at Rude's head. "Wuzi are made of different...I dunno, parts. Like letters but not. Little parts. You combine 'em to make the wuzi."

"Well, as long as you know what you're talking about, everything is fine," Rude said. "So you can write Wutai."

"...Yeah," Reno said, somewhat hedgingly.

"Good." Rude pulled out a card and held it and a pen out to Reno, then opened one of the books. "So write this character on one side," he said, tapping the first one.

Reno nodded, and picked up the pen. Rude's eyebrows went up slightly, seeing how Reno gripped the pen--it was totally different from how a pen was normally held, holding it so it was exactly vertical. Reno wrote the simple Wutai character quickly.

"Now, flip the card over, and write out how to say it," Rude said. Reno got that strange look again, but it was gone quickly, and he flipped the card. And immediately changed how he was holding the pen, back to normal, and wrote out the romanized Wutai.

"This good?" Reno asked, looking uncertain.

Rude nodded. "Right, like that. Now, do that for all the Wutai characters you need to learn today."

"Gotcha," Reno said, nodding. But something still seemed off, and Rude couldn't put his finger on exactly _what_. Still, Reno did what Rude said, switching his hold on the pen every time he flipped the card, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he worked steadily through the list. Slowly, the pile of cards grew to be fairly respectable.

"How many do you need to know?"

Reno shrugged. "The stupid test had the first hundred in this book on there, since he said I was supposed to learn _at least_ ten per week. He had enough on there for me to learn more. So I figure, I get about forty or fifty, my pay'll be OK."

"OK. Write until you have the first one hundred, though, and we'll see how many you know and pick the easiest ones for you to learn from there."

"...Yeeeeeah, OK," Reno said, getting that strange look on his face. Rude frowned again, wondering just what it was he was missing. But Reno kept writing, even though he got slower and slower the closer he got to finished, slouching more and more in his chair and looking more and more forlorn. Rude watched him, frowning more to himself as he watched Reno. Well, he'd find out soon enough what Reno's problem was.

"Finished," Reno finally said, dropping the pen and rubbing his hand. He closed the book and sighed. "Now what?"

"Relax, partner," Rude said, smiling slightly incredulously at the look on Reno's face. The look on his face was pure dread. "Now we just find out what you know."

Reno slumped more at that. Rude picked up the cards and shuffled them slightly. "I'll hold up a card, and you tell me what it says on the back, all right?"

"Swell," Reno said dryly, scowling. Rude ignored it and held up a card, showing the Wutai character to Reno,

"What's this one?" he asked. He glanced at the Wutai in roman letters on the back, and just hoped whatever Reno said might match the odd string of letters he was looking it. Just how was one supposed to pronounce "jia"? And what did that dialectical mark mean?

"...Dunno," Reno said flatly.

Well, that was promising. "OK. Next one, then," Rude said, putting the card to the side in what would be the "doesn't know yet" pile.

"...Dunno," Reno said, voice just as flat.

"All right. Next."

"...Dunno."

"This one?"

"...Dunno that one, neither," Reno said, slumping more, shoulders turning in.

They went through about ten cards, Reno slouching more and more in his chair and his "Dunno" getting more and more sullen before, his face lit up.

"Oh, hey, I know that one! It's _yu_! Fish!" he said, brightening.

"Correct," Rude said, deciding that what had just come out of Reno's mouth certainly looked like it could be "yu", as was written on the back of the card. "Good," he said, smiling.

Reno grinned back. "See, I can read a menu. Food, I know."

Rude chuckled. "So we'll have to make Tseng test you by taking you out for Wutai," he said as he put the card into new pile. "So what's this one?"

Reno shrank again. "...Dunno."

By the time they got through the cards, Rude's head was hurting and Reno was slouched down so far in his chair that Rude was amazed he could see over the desk. The pile of Wutai characters that Reno did know was depressingly small, only a few cards.

Rude sighed. "OK. Let's make this manageable. I want you to pick five cards out of this pile that you think you almost know, and we'll get these down."

Reno looked at the pile like they were going to bite him, but reached over and picked them up. He started flipping through them, looking more and more angry and upset, and finally he threw them on the desk in a fit and slumped back down. "Fuck this shit, man, I can't do this! I don't understand any of this shit! I don't know any of these! I can NOT do this!"

Rude stared at Reno in surprise. "Now, wait a minute. You knew these," he said, gesturing at the small pile that Reno knew. "If you could learn these, you can learn others. I know all of them at once may seem unmanageable, but that's why we're going to break it down."

Rude gathered the flashcards and picked one at random. "Let's begin with this one. What do you think it means?"

"...Dunno," Reno said sullenly.

Rude resisted the urge to clinch his fist and crumple the card in his hands. "So, let's study this one." He looked at the romanized Wutai on the back and didn't even try to pronounce it. He instead flipped it and showed it to Reno. "Now, what does this say? Say it aloud."

Reno's face got that strange overwhelmed look to it, but this time, he looked trapped. He swallowed a few times and blinked. "It's...it's..." he began, then clinched his jaw tight and hunched his shoulders. "I dunno."

Rude blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I dunno," Reno said again, voice getting quieter, barely a whisper.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Rude said, not able to believe what he was hearing. Reno was looking at the word written out in letters; surely he had to know what it was this way!

"I said I don't know!" Reno snapped angrily, looking all the world like he was on the verge of tears.

"But you're looking at the word. How do you say it?"

Reno shrank more and refused to look at Rude; his words almost impossible to hear. "I can't make sense of how it's written like that," he finally said. "All these damn books, they think you know what 'X-U-E' is supposed to sound like, an' I don't. 'Ksuey? Kyuu? Kshoe? What the shit, that ain't Wutai," he said, voice getting angry, face showing his frustration. He pounded his hand on the desk in frustration. "Don't _none_ of this make any sense!"

Rude stared at him as he parsed everything Reno had just said so vehemently. "Wait. Are you saying that you can't read the romanization?" he finally said.

"I can _read_," Reno said defensively. _"_But no, I can't read _this_. So I don't know what all anything is supposed to be. I can't read the _wuzi_, I can't read the _words_, this is _pointless_!" he finally exploded with. "I spent all night tryin' to put it all together, and I can figure out some, readin' the English meaning and rememberin' the Wutai, and from when I can remember the wuzi I learned when I was a kid, but shit man, that was a long time ago, an' I even forgot a lot of Wutai in all them years, other than how to insult somebody, and don't neither way make sense, man, and I can't do this," he finally ended, shoulders slumping, looking completely lost and defeated.

"How did you learn to read Wutai characters before?" Rude asked, trying to figure out in his head how Reno had learned any Wutai characters without any kind of romanization. He knew it had to be possible, since Wutai people did, but he'd never thought about the ins and outs of it until now.

Reno shrugged, not meeting Rude's eyes. "Some of it, someone told me the word an' I just memorized the wuzi saying the word over and over again. Other times, I read the _bopomofo_."

Rude blinked. "...the _what_?"

Reno shrugged again, the movement lithe and dismissive. "It's kinda like an alphabet or something. Little kids learn to read _bopomofo_ first, then wuzi. So some of the wuzi when I was first learning had the bopomofo. I was lookin' all over, but I didn't see none in any of these," he said, gesturing at the books. "Just letters thrown together that don't make no sense. I don't remember all the bopomofo, I don't think, but if I had some at least I could _kinda_ figure some of this crap out," he said, looking frustrated.

And suddenly, it all made sense. For all Reno was _lazy_, he _also_ did his job and obeyed orders. Tseng had given him and order, and if Reno could do it, he would, even though he'd bitch like a bitch about having to. Even dragging his feet because he didn't want to do it for whatever reason, he'd have still _done _it. But this made sense; it wasn't that he _wasn't_ doing it, it was that he _couldn't_, he had been given the wrong tools entirely, and wrong in such a way as to be frustrating and make the man feel stupider and stupider the longer the tried and failed. And Reno had his pride; he couldn't just waltz up to his boss and say, "I can't to this because I can't read any of this either way." So he'd covered it with being prickly and cocky and bitching his head off, hoping that Tseng and everyone else would give up.

"Well, then, first things first," Rude said, putting the cards down. "Let's figure out how this is supposed to be romanized."

Reno gave Rude an odd look, oddly grateful and vulnerable. He didn't say anything, but his eyes were large and he nodded. "Yeah, OK. If you can make sense of it," he said, looking down at his hands. "I can barely figure out where to begin. I figured out some from the few wuzi I remember from when I was a kid, but I don't remember enough. I ain't totally dumb, y'know? I figured out some of it. But some...man, it just didn't make sense. Like, I got D-A was _da_ and M-I was _mi_, but shit like J-I-U? X-U-E? What the fuck, partner. I feel like I've been beatin' my head against a brick wall or something."

"I can certainly see why. This had to be frustrating," Rude said, nodding.

The look Reno gave him was relieved and grateful. "You don't think I'm stupid or nothin'?"

Rude shook his head. "You had no way of knowing this," he said, mentally cursing Tseng. Tossing a bunch of books at _Reno_ of all people was the absolutely _worst_ way that Tseng could have possibly gone about this. Reno had no idea how to study and had been given the absolute wrong tools. "Anyone would have been overwhelmed." Rude picked up the book and flipped to the beginning, looking at how it explained the romanization, and wrote it off as useless. Same with the next book. And the third. All of them assumed a familiarity with the romanization system springing from learning it in a classroom or from someone. There seemed no sign of the "bopomofo" that Reno _did_ know, and Rude closed the books with a sigh, and without a word, Rude picked up the phone and dialed Tseng's extension.

"Yes?" Tseng answered smoothly.

"Tseng. This is Rude."

"Is something wrong?"

"Yes. It's about Reno."

Tseng's voice went cold. "I can assume this is about his learning to read Wutai."

"That is correct."

"His laziness is no one's problem but his own."

"I believe that there is a misunderstanding as to the roots of the problem," Rude said neutrally. Reno was watching him with wide eyes, listening carefully.

"Well, then, what do you think the 'roots of the problem' are, then?" Tseng said, voice growing colder.

"Is there a beginning Wutai reader available that uses...ahh, what was it, Reno?" he said, looking over.

"What was what?"

"The Wutai alphabet."

Reno blinked, then his eyes went wide. "_Bopomofo_?"

"Yes, that," he said, nodding. "Bo...bo...bopo...mofo," he said to Tseng, ignoring Reno's snicker. "That, instead of romanization."

There was a long pause.

"...You're telling me that Reno can't read romanized Wutai."

"That is correct, sir."

There was another long pause.

"Meaning that he could look at the words and they wouldn't make any sense at all."

"That is correct, sir."

"Meaning neither the Wutai characters nor the words would have any meaning at all."

"That is correct, sir."

There was another long pause before Tseng let out a muffled curse. "I see."

There was another long silence before Tseng spoke again. "I will have proper materials sent to your office within the hour."

"Thank you, sir."

There was another long silence, and Tseng sighed again. "I will restore his pay and give him until next week to learn the characters without penalty. But he will still be required to take the assessment test tomorrow."

"Thank you," Rude said again.

"You know, he _could_ have told me," Tseng said, sounding slightly irritated. "Or researched how to convert bopomofo to romanization himself."

Rude said nothing for a long while, before finally settling on, "Yes, I suppose that is theoretically true."

Tseng let out another sigh. "Within the hour," he said, and hung up.

Rude hung up the phone. "Tseng will be sending appropriate materials in bopomofo within the hour," Rude said, pushing up his sunglasses. "Also, your pay will be returned to normal."

"Thanks, man," Reno said, slumping again, this time in relief, giving Rude a look of complete gratitude.

Rude smiled faintly. "But you still have to take the test tomorrow. "

The smile fell off Reno's face.

"And next week, if you want to keep your pay."

"...Oh, Ifrit in a rainstorm," Reno swore, and thudded his head against the desk. "You got a gun, yeah? Just put a bullet in my brain; it'll be quicker. Kill me. I'm _beggin'_ ya, here."

Rude didn't even try not to laugh.


	6. Bopomofo

The Things You Never Knew About People

Di liu hua: Zhuyin [bopomofo

Notes: Sorry for the MASSIVE delay; what can I say other than my life went to hell and it took a long time to get everything back together. But now I'm back!

Also, According to the timelines I looked up online, around now is when the war with Wutai is starting. It's important to know, but not something easy to work into the story, since this is done from Reno's POV, and Reno is only ten--he just doesn't think about the fact that a war is happening, because he's ten and a slum kid, so it has no real bearing, yet, on his life. Yet.

-

"_Hey, Auntie Quan_..."

"_What did he mean, you don't go to school?!"_

Reno winced instantly and wished very much that he had something to duck behind, but unfortunately, Jie's mom swelling up like an angry chocobo was something that was unavoidable, especially with her being in the doorway.

_"I_..."Reno managed to get out when he made his mouth move. He'd forgotten, somehow, how truly _terrifying_ Jie's mom was when she was _really_ angry, and right now? Was a _really angry_ moment, and he had no idea why.

"Reno, run for it!" Jie yelled from somewhere behind his mother, and in proof that Jie's mom had in fact started to pick up some English lately, she seemed to swell up bigger than ever, and Reno had the distinct impression that if he ran, he was going to regret it a whole, _whole_ lot.

"Uh..." he started, and Jie's mom got the really scary look. "Uh...yeah. So. Um. _ I don't go to school. Ain't got no need for school._"

And as soon as he had said the words, he realized he had said the _absolute wrong thing._

He didn't know that Jie's mom's back could go straighter than it was or her eyes all but start glowing like she was summoning Ifrit or something, which went to prove that you learned something new every day.

The next thing he learned wasn't really new per se, but something that was simply reaffirmed: Jie's mom was _fast_, fast like someone put Haste on her, and it _really really hurt_ when she smacked you upside the head and was serious about it.

"_What do you mean 'you don't need school'?" _she screamed, punctuating every other word almost with fresh smacks to the back of Reno's head. "_Did your brains shrivel up and blow away?! Or is it that your brains turned to shit and now stupidity has taken root and is blooming in your head?!_"

"_What your problem_!" Reno yelped, covering his head. "_Lotta kids don't go to school!_"

"You in house now!" Jie's mom yelled in broken, heavily accented English, and that was when Reno knew he was SCREWED.

And that was how Reno found himself slouching on the couch in the Qian's tiny apartment, getting screamed at royally in Wutai, wishing he was anywhere but where he was right then. Luckily, Jie was there, and getting reamed out right along with him. After a while, Jie's mom began to hit the "incoherent" stage, where she was just spluttering angrily. She finally screamed, "You stay couch!" and stomped off into the kitchen, and Jie and Reno could hear the sounds of pots and pans being slammed against things, along with snippets of angry, snarled Wutai; things along the lines of, "_Why, why, two idiot boys?! Bad enough one, but two_?!" and "_Both their brains, gone_!" and "_His stupid is infecting the other_!"

"..._Dude, what got into your mom_?" Reno hissed under his breath, seriously contemplating sneaking out the window. Yeah, sure, it was a four storey apartment, but at this point, he'd take his chances with the "falling and dying" thing. It was seriously looking like a much better option at that point.

"_Shit if I know_," Jie said, slumping more. "_Someone told her there was free school in Midgar. So she wanted me to go. I said I didn't wanna. She got all mad, and I said you didn't have to go, so why should I?_"

"...You stupid shit!" Reno squawked. "This is all your fault!"

"_Whaddaya mean,_'my fault'? _It's your fault! You don't go to school so why should I have to?_"

"_Drop dead, motorcycle_!" Reno yelled, smacking Jie's arm. "_You got me in this mess_! You suck!"

"No, YOU suck! _Drop dead_!" Jie yelled, and punched Reno in the arm. A few moments later, the angry Wutai woman in the kitchen was forgotten as they started whaling away at each other.

She was not, however, forgotten for long.

"_THIS IS WHY YOU NEED SCHOOL_! _YOU IGNORANT LITTLE HOOLIGANS!_"

Jie and Reno instantly went stock still, and Reno let go of the grip he had on Jie's long hair as Jie stopped mid-punch to Reno's stomach. They managed to throw each other panicked "Oh shit" looks before Jie's mom descended on them, smacking both of them behind the head, screaming at both of them. She knocked both of their heads together once, hard, and then stepped back, arms crossed angrily and eyes narrowed.

"_Apologize to each other. NOW!_"

"_But_!" Jie started.

"_NOW!_"

"_Sorry_," Jie muttered under his breath, ducking his head in the quickest possible bow.

"_Yeah. Sorry_," Reno muttered, doing the same. And since they had both by then learned, then faced Jie's mom and muttered a mumbled "_We're sorry and thank you_," to her, and bowed at her from where they were sitting before she could start.

"Nngh," she muttered, still looking ready to start smacking them again. She waved at the kitchen. "Food made. Go eat. Tomorrow we go school," Jie's mom said in her halting, only recently acquired English. "_I heard I can go and just register Jie-Jie and everything is OK from there._" She turned and glared hard at Reno, so hard he started shrinking into the sofa and wishing he had stayed home that day, hungry or not--first he had passed _that weird guy_ on the way here, and then this._ "And you're going too, so after you eat go home and get clothes, you're staying over here tonight. Or else I will go to your apartment tomorrow and__**get you**_"

And the way she said it, Reno knew she was most definitely not bluffing. He had a sudden image of _Jie's mom_ meeting his mom and his face went pale, and that was _that_.

-

Reno knew that things were going to be bad in class right off the bat. He had known even before he got to school that things were going to be bad. He had passed _the weird guy_ on his way, and the guy had wanted to talk to him. And when he got to school, the sinking feeling he'd had since that morning intensified. It wasn't just the rather decrepit state of the classroom--that was, at that point, not unexpected, not below the Plate--or even the glares from several kids Reno remembered far too well.

No, what clued Reno in to the fact that they were in for a bad, bad time was the little smile the teacher got on his face when he saw Jie.

"Ahh, yes, the principal told me about you," he said, and Reno didn't like that smile. And from a quick glance at Jie, he could tell Jie was not all that fond of it, either. "Do you actually speak English or is this a waste of everyone's time? DO. YOU. SPEAK. ENGLISH?"

"_Are you stupid?"_ Jie said, making a face. Reno let out a snicker.

"Guess that answers that, yeah?" Reno said, with an admirably straight face.

"You," the teacher, Rhisanx, said, suddenly turning on Reno. "That's right. You're the other one, the one that speaks that chocobo jabber," he said.

"_Yeah, you're stupid, that's for sure_," Reno said, smiling brightly and nodding.

The teacher narrowed his eyes at how Jie snickered at that, but didn't saying anything.

"You two, sit in the back. Don't disrupt the class," he said, and pointed at two seats in the very back of the room, glaring at them.

"Yessir," Reno said, and tugged Jie's arm. "_C'mon, play along with it._"

"_Yeah, cool. He's a total motorcycle anyway,_" Jie said, and nodded. They headed to the seats they had been assigned to, and as they walked, some of the dumbasses in the classes started in at them under their breath in fake Wutai.

"Ching chong chang chang chong ping chong!"

"Ping ping poing pang chang chang chong!"

"..._Your mom owes me big for this, yo,"_ Reno muttered.

"Hey, didn't know wonks came in redhead," one kid snickered. "Pang pong chang chang jong jang ching!"

"_Tell me about it,"_ Jie said, and they both slumped in their seats.

-

And from there, things pretty much went downhill. When recess came around, a pattern was fairly quickly established: run fast, before the bigger kids got them. Kids notoriously didn't like anyone who was strange, and between Reno's flamingly bright red hair and Jie's being Wutai in a time and place when that was a very bad thing and a year older than everyone in their year to boot (they had been put together since Reno was the only one in the school who spoke Wutai), the two of them found very, very quickly that they had a sign on them that said, quite clearly, "Try to Beat the Crap Out of Me!"

But as bad as recess became, the worst was class itself. Rhisanx made no bones at all about his distain for Jie and his inability to speak English very well and for Reno's almost gleeful pride in his own ignorance.

And so, life quickly settled into a familiar pattern. Every morning, Reno dragged himself out of bed, got dressed, if there was food he ate it, but as was more often the case there was none, and headed for school. If he got up early enough, he went by Jie's house, because there was _always_food there, and he could get something for breakfast and maybe a couple of baozi for lunch. If he overslept, which was more often the case, the went straight to school and just kinda hoped _that weird guy_ who always wanted to talk to him wasn't around. _That weird guy_ seemed nice enough, always saying hello and asking how Reno was and trying to get Reno to talk to him more than a few minutes, but something about that seemed weird, saying hi all the time like that to someone you didn't know and didn't have no connection to, and one thing he had liked about not going to school, aside from the whole "not going to school" thing, was that he never passed _the weird guy_, since he only saw him en route to school.

Days when he was late, he met Jie at the front of the school, and more often than not Jie's lunch had an extra baozi in it for him. They would drag their feet together and wait until the last possible moment to go to class, and from their public humiliation would inevitably begin as soon as Rhisanx saw them. And with the teacher making things difficult for them, the other students just fell in line, with that line being "Make Reno and Jie Hate Their Lives." Class was daily humiliation and recess was daily face beatings, but only if they got caught. And pretty soon, if the person who caught them was actually fast enough to _hit_ them.

They were beginning to get very good at dodging.

_"No way, man, Shiva."_

_"Oh, please, Ifrit would __**totally**__ beat Shiva in a fig--_"

"Enough with the 'chang chang chong'!" Rhisanx yelled in exasperation.

Reno frowned. "But sir, I was just explaining--!"

The piece of chalk that the teacher had been holding then came flying out and hit Reno on the head. "You're always 'just explaining'. If he doesn't understand English by now, he's too stupid to do anything but work in a laundry somewhere."

Jie's hands tightened in to fists and his eyes narrowed slightly, and he muttered "_Go fuck your old mom," _under his breath.

"Reno! What did he say?!" Rhisanx yelled.

"Uh...he said he was sorry," Reno said, all innocence and smiles. _"Yeah, sorry about your mom,_" he finished in Wutai under his breath, and Jie snickered.

"That's IT!" Rhisanx snarled. "NO more Wutai in my classroom!"

"But sir," Reno said, returning to his wide-eyed innocent face, "If we can't speak Wutai, how's Jie gonna understand everythin'? I'm helpin' him!"

"No, what you are_doing_ is being a _smartass_," he said. "I seem to recall Jie doing _better_ than you on the last test, not that_that _would be hard to do, so the last thing he needs is your help! So if I hear any more today in the middle of class and I will separate you both for the rest of the year! Maybe without a crutch he'll finally learn!" he finished, and turned back to the board, picking up another piece of chalk.

Reno glanced over at Jie, and saw Jie's hands were still balled into tight little fists, and he was clinching his jaw.

"_Hey, you_--" Reno started to whisper, when Jie shook his head sharply, and put his finger up to his mouth, shushing Reno. Reno slumped back in his chair and waited until the class ended, giving up because he knew there was no way Jie was gonna say anything until the teacher was gone. And Rhisanx, still seeming to be almost seething at the two of them, took great pleasure in calling on Jie every chance he got and at every "I don't know" Jie said.

"_This SUCKS_," Jie muttered, slumping in his chair at lunch. All morning, Rhisanx had continued calling on Jie, as if trying to humiliate him. Reno didn't care one bit when he had to answer "I dunno," but it grated at Jie. "_I don't understand him when he talks fast and is facing the board. How'm I supposed to know what he's saying if he won't let you tell me? And this sucks, ma is gonna get __**so**__ mad if I get bad grades._"

"_This sucks so bad. Just 'cause he's a stupid old fart."_ Reno said, slumping in his chair as well. "_Other kids talk in class. Other kids even pass notes, and he doesn't say anything. Too bad I can't write Wutai_..."

Suddenly, Jie's face lit up. "_Bopomofo_!"

Reno frowned and stared at Jie as if Jie had gone crazy. "Hunh?"

Jie immediately pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil. "_Bopomofo_! _Kids use it before they learn wuzi. It's like _letters, _but for Wutai_! I teach you _bopomofo_, we can pass notes!"

Reno's face lit up. "Oh, score."

It took Reno a few weeks to get all of the _bopomofo_ down, but once he did, they began passing each other notes in bopomofo and taking great pleasure in Rhisanx getting disgusted at not being able to read them if he confiscated them.

Not so much pleasure, however, in the detentions Rhisanx tended to pass out like candy whenever that happened. It didn't matter if the note was just a translation for the times, happening more and more rarely, that Jie didn't understand something--Rhisanx didn't believe they were ever harmless, even though truth be known they very rarely were, and that was that.

It was after one of those many detentions, when Reno was walking home later than was normal, that things went bad. He and Jie had gone their separate ways, and Reno was taking a shortcut home.

"Hey, Reno."

"Oh. Hi," Reno said, stopping out of habit. Great, it was _that weird guy_.

"You going home now?"

"Yeah," Reno said, brushing his hair out of his eyes.

"Me, too. I'm going to go home and make dinner. Would you like to come with me?"

The weird guy was always inviting Reno to come over to his place and have food, but one of the first things his mom had told him was never go nowhere with nobody grown-up that he didn't know. And Reno wasn't stupid; he knew there were pedos and pedos went after kids and did weird things to them, and while Reno didn't precisely know what it was weird that the pedos did to kids, he sure didn't want to find out the hard way.

"Can't," Reno said quickly. "My mom said for me not to go off with grown-ups I don't know."

The weird guy smiled. "But you do know me. I told you my name before, Maxith."

"...Yeah, but..." Reno said, frowning slightly. Yeah, so he _did _know the weird guy, but he didn't really _know_ him.

"And I've got a PlaySystem and MatCube. Materia Combat is pretty good; you play it?"

"It's OK. I like Chocobo Raiders better," Reno said, figuring he could talk about games, that was OK.

"Yeah, that's a good one," the weird guy...Maxith...said. "Two was really good, But so far, three is the best."

"You got Chocobo Raiders 3?!" Reno said, jaw dropping and envy washing over him. That one had just come out, and he and Jie both really wanted it, but it was way too expensive, and trying to nick new games was almost impossible, especially ones like Chocobo Raiders 3. "Lucky..."

"And you know you can get unlock a gold chocobo after you beat the game once?"

"Oh, man..." Reno said, all but jumping at how much he wanted to play it now. Man, he and Jie _had_ to find a way to get that game _now_...a gold!

He almost didn't hear Maxith. "Well, you wanna play?"

"Do I!" Reno said, unable to keep the wistful tone out of his voice.

Maxith...the weird guy...smiled, and something about it put Reno back on edge. "Well, I can set it up for you at my place, show you all the cool stuff you can do now." There was something about the guy trying to get him to his house that really put Reno on edge--it seemed like it was too much.

But, aw man, Chocobo Raiders _3_...

"Nah, I can't," Reno finally said, shaking his head even as vision of gold chocobo flashed through his head. Chocobo Raiders _3_...

The weird guy grinned, but it wasn't a good grin. There was something sneaky about it that Reno didn't like, and Reno had long ago learned that it was a good idea, listening to the little voice in his head saying "Something ain't right, yo."

"Aww, that's too bad. I really wanted someone to play with. I could make you dinner, show you all the cool stuff in Chocobo Raiders 3..." Maxith said, smiling.

"Yeah. Uh...Maybe another day, 'cause I...I gotta go, um, Maxith," Reno said, a bad feeling in his gut pushing out even the gold chocobo. The weird guy's smile was kinda giving Reno the creeps in a way he couldn't quite put his finger on, and Reno was starting to guess that the weird guy was a _pedo_, meaning Reno probably didn't want to go anywhere near where the guy lived. "I...I gotta go home. Bye," he said, and started backing away. "My mom is waiting for me," he said, lying.

The look on the guy's face turned ugly all of a sudden. "Your mom, eh? I know about your mother," the weird guy said, looking all sneaky all of a sudden.

Reno's lip curled. "Don't talk about my mom!" he yelled, and swung at the weird guy. The weird guy caught it easily, and then grabbed Reno's arm, tight. "Hey, lemme go!" Reno said, trying to pull away.

The weird guy didn't let go; in fact he pulled Reno closer to him. "Are you like your mom, Reno?"

"Lemme go!" Reno said, breath starting to hitch slightly.

"No, I don't think you are like her, 'cause at least your mom is earning her food. And yours. How do you think she's getting the money to feed you? Don't you want to help her out? Or are you gonna run home and cause your mother more problems? Don't you wanna help her?"

Reno nodded, eyes wide, still trying to jerk himself free and not sure how to react to all this or what to do, or even where this was all going. His eyes felt funny, like he was going to cry and it was hard for him to breathe and he was scared and all he wanted to do was go _home_.

"Fifty gil," Maxith said, voice low. "You just have to come with me. Think about what you can get with fifty gil. I promise I won't hurt you."

Fifty gil was more money than Reno had ever seen in his life. He was scared out of his mind, but part of him was thinking, if he had fifty gil, maybe his mom would stay home a few nights. He hadn't seen her for more than a few minutes in days--he was going to school when she was coming home, or worse he would hear the sound of her bed creaking and knew to stay in his room lest he see some man he would never see again walking out after the creaking stopped.

"I..." he started, shaking. "You won't hurt me?" he said in a small, high voice. Reno knew enough to know he was trapped; the guy was bigger and stronger and had his arm tight, so Reno was gonna have to go if he wanted to or not. But at least this way, if he agreed, he'd get gil out of it, and maybe on the way he could think of a way to get loose. "You _promise_?"

The weird guy smiled. "I promi--"

"You...what you doing?" a voice said. Reno jerked and looked over to see Jie standing only a few feet from them, eyes narrowed in a way that Reno had never seen before. Reno had no idea how long Jie had been there, or even why Jie was there in the first place, but never had he been so relieved to see him.

Almost instantly, the man's hand dropped from Reno's arm, and Reno in one movement grabbed the guy's wallet (because fifty gil sure was an awful lot of money) and scrambled back and away so fast he skidded and stumbled, falling backwards and landing hard on his rear, which stopped his mad scramble back not at all. He got to his feet and half ran for Jie as he hid the wallet, barely taking the time to register the look on Jie's face.

But he did take the time, and the look on it was one he'd never seen. Not on Jie. He'd seen it before, yeah--Reno'd all but lived on the streets for most of his life, and he knew that look. It was the dangerous look, the look on the faces of the people you stayed away from when it was aimed at you, and there was something so almost feral about the look on Jie's face that even the man recoiled from it, coming as it was from a child.

There was something cold and dangerous in Jie's next words.

"Come near him again and I kill you. I find gun and shoot you 'til you die."

"Brave words, kid," the man said, but there was something uncertain in his voice, a false bravado, making Reno very, very glad he couldn't see Jie's face, hiding as he was behind Jie.

But Jie's next words made Reno feel cold. "Not words. I shoot you 'til you DIE. One shot in head, you die."

"Whatever, kid," the man said, but Reno could see how suddenly jittery the man was, and feel how stiff Jie's shoulders were. "See ya around, kid," the man said, and turned and walked off, and not until he was gone did the terrifying steeliness leave Jie's body.

That was when Jie turned to face Reno, and then.

"_You stupid idiot_!" Jie yelled, and yeah, suddenly, Reno could see that Jie was definitely his mother's child. "_Don't you know how to take care of yourself? What if I hadn't come?! What if it had--!_"

He hadn't even finished the last sentence before his fist came flying out. Reno ducked it, but only just barely, and then the fight was on.

"_Why you try hit me,_ dumbass?!" Reno screamed, and aimed a punch at Jie's nose.

"You the dumbass, dumbass!" Jie yelled back, blocking Reno's punch and throwing one of his own.

"_Stupid motorcycle_!" Reno said, ducking.

"Dumbass! Idiot! Go to hell!" Jie said, eyes blazing when Reno ducked. Jie was bigger and stronger than Reno, but Reno's speed had always kept them even.

"_You go die_!" Reno screamed.

And the fight kept on, fists flailing, until suddenly Reno realized that Jie, who had by then tackled him and was now currently sitting on Reno's stomach and punching him despite Reno's efforts to block him, was crying, breath catching and hitching.

And then it was all kinda too much, all the stress of the day--school, the adrenalin and fear from the guy, the fight with Jie--and the next thing Reno knew, his breath hitched once and suddenly he was sobbing away like Jie. Jie hit him weakly one more time and then just gave up and cried, shoulders shaking, head bowed, and arms limply at his side.

When their crying settled back into hiccupping breaths and occasional sniffles, Jie finally got off Reno's belly, and they sat on the ground in the dirty alleyway, silent and jittery.

Reno finally spoke. "I'm hungry."

"...Me, too," Jie said, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "_Ma is working late again but there's food at my place._"

Reno nodded, not saying anything anymore, and followed Jie home. Once they got their, they bandaged each other up with an efficiency that came from having done it many times, and made themselves food. Reno had quickly started to learn how to cook, just from watching Jie's mom whenever she was home cooking as well as from pestering her to ask what she was putting in and what everything was, underfoot to the point where she started calling him her little red kitchen shadow, and that had recently somehow morphed into just "Xiao Hong," Little Red.

She was always slightly surprised by his interest in making food, and sometimes joked he would make a good wife one day. Which always made Reno scowl and her laugh and ruffle his hair. He couldn't cook very well yet, but Jie admitted Reno was far better at it than him, and left most of the heating up of the food to Reno.

They ate in silence, and when the food was finished, Reno washed the dishes and Jie started studying, saying his mother would kill him if it wasn't done. Reno shrugged, and began playing a video game--Jie had been smart and used all his New Year's money buying a system, and they had been smart, working out a system for getting games past the alarm systems. When Jie finished any of his homework, he passed it to Reno, and Reno dutifully copied the answers. Then they started playing Chocobo Raiders 2 together, and played until they were too tired to keep their eyes open any longer.

--

Jie was moving restlessly in his sleep, tossing and turning, and it woke Reno up.

"Nngh, what're you doin'? Shaddup...I'm sleepin'..." he mumbled sleepily, making a face.

"_No...no, don't...don't...Mama, please, Mama..._BabaBaba" Jie muttered in his sleep, face scrunched up.

"Jiiiiie, shaddup!" Reno whined again, and shoved at Jie.

"_I'll kill you_!!" Jie yelled in his sleep, then woke up with a start, breathing fast.

Reno stared at Jie, eyes wide. "_Jie? You OK_?"

Jie blinked, breathing fast and eyes wide. "_A dream...a bad dream...I just had a bad dream_," he said, and his breath hitched.

"_What's '_baba'?"

Jie startled, eyes wide, going stock-still.

"Well, you were sayin' it," Reno said, frowning.

"_It means_'father'," Jie said, drawing his feet so he was sitting with his knees under his chin. He wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face in them.

"_You OK_?"

"..._Yeah. I'm OK_," Jie said.

Reno didn't buy it for a minute, but had no idea what to do. He finally said, "_We have school tomorrow. We need to sleep, OK?_"

"_...Yeah, you're right_," Jie said, voice blank. Reno tugged at his sleeve.

"_You should lay down to sleep, stupid_," he said.

"_Yeah, OK_," Jie said, and laid down next to Reno. But he stayed stiff, staring at the ceiling.

"_What'd you dream about_?"

"..._nothing. Just a bad dream_," Jie said, voice strange. "Night, Reno."

"Night," Reno said, biting his lip. He gave up and heaved a sigh, and buried his face in his pillow. Today had just been too weird, and he knew he should sleep, but he was too played up and nervous, his entire body starting to shake again. He was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting his mother; wanting someone to hug him and tell him everything was OK; wanting to feel _safe_.

So he moved closer to Jie and put his arms around him, hugging him tightly and laying his head on Jie's chest like he would against his mother's. He was half expecting Jie to punch at him, but instead Jie hugged him back, just as tightly even though his arms were shaking, and Reno felt something in him relax at the same time as Jie seemed to go a little slack himself.

The next morning when he woke up, he thought for a moment he had been tied up or something, since he couldn't move at all, what with the tangle of limbs that was the way they had wrapped around each other in their sleep.

Jie's mom was as she always was, eyes barely open when the two of them stumbled out of Jie's room. It took her a moment to register there were two boys instead of just one, but she just scratched her shoulder, yawned again, and took down another set of dishes.

Jie looked as dead as his mom, shoveling the food in his mouth and yawning.

"_Hey, Jie. Why were you out there yesterday, anyway?_" Reno asked suddenly. He had briefly wondered yesterday about it, then it had slipped his mind because getting away from _the weird guy _had taken all precedence.

"Hunh? Oh. _Ran into Sanith's gang_," Jie said. "_As soon as we split up, they came after me and started chasing me. I managed to lose 'em, but I didn't know how to get back, so I was trying to get to your place._"

"Oh," Reno said, nodding. That did explain how Jie had come out of nowhere--Sanith was the worst of the ones trying to beat the crap out of Jie. Sanith had always been bad, but he'd gotten a lot worse after his dad got killed in Wutai a couple weeks ago, and running away had quickly developed into the best possible strategy for dealing with him and his friends.

"_Sanith's gang_?" Jie's mother asked, blinking from her cup of some kind of weird Wutai thing she drank sometimes.

"_Some of the guys that always beat up Jie_."

Jie's mom blinked again. "What?"

"I hate school!" Jie burst out with. "_There are always these groups of kids trying to beat up me or Reno! _It sucks!"

Jie's mother was still not a morning person. Still bleary-eyed and grouchy from not being fully awake, she gave both of them a Look. "_But there are two of you, aren't there? Work together. One of you kick the biggest one in the crotch and then the other punch him in the face when he goes down. Stop whining and use your brains_!" she said, sounding disgusted at them not having figured out how to take care of bullies themselves.

"_But that's fighting dirty_!" Reno finally said.

Jie's mother gave him another look. "_Who cares about that? It's not about fighting dirty, it's about winning so you don't have to fight anymore. And besides, don't you two have each other's back? Why else be friends? And there is far more honor in defending your friends than there is in letting a dishonorable person take advantage of someone smaller and doing nothing. Bullies go after the ones they think are weak. So don't be weak._"

Both Jie and Reno blinked at her for a long time, processing, and Jie's mom let out a disgusted sound. "_Both of you! Your brains did turn to shit and stupid bloomed in the mess! Aiya_!" She shook her head and went back to washing the dishes from breakfast.

After a while, Reno looked over at Jie. "You know what?"

"What?"

"Your mom's pretty cool."

A smile lit up Jie's face. "Yeah. She's all right sometimes." Jie jumped up. "_C'mon, let's go head on to school, then."_

Reno gave Jie and grin, and then they headed out the door.

"_Oh, hey, you know that guy yesterday_?" Reno said, suddenly remembering.

"_Yeah, what about him_?" Jie said, scowling at the memory.

"_I got his wallet, _man." Reno grinned. There had been over fifty gil in the wallet. And, Reno thought pragmatically, if he gave the money to his mom, she'd snort it up her nose or something. And he'd earned it, dammit, it was _his_--he nicked it _fair and square_ off the pedo. "_I checked this morning when you were in the bathroom, and_ _there was enough for _Chocobo Raiders 3!"

Jie suddenly grinned. "Oh, SCORE."

"Well, I hope all of you studied for your test today," Rhisanx said as soon as the bell rang for science class.

Reno felt the blood draining out of his face. "_Test_?!" he hissed at Jie.

Jie nodded, looking at Reno like he was dumb. "_He said we had it yesterday. When you were sleeping_."

"Quiet!" Rhisanx said, and began passing out the test.

They got the test, and Reno felt his stomach dropping. "_Oh, shit, I don't know any_," he said under his breath.

"NO TALKING!" the teacher yelled. "Especially not in Wutai! If you have a question about the test, ask me!"

Jie's fingers twitched, and suddenly, a little smile curled his lips. He started working on the test quickly, as Reno just stared at his paper and wondered what on earth he was supposed to do. He chewed on his pencil tip and then started trying to figure out some of the answers. He got partway through when Jie kicked him under the desk to get his attention. He looked up and saw Jie had that same little smile on his face.

And written down the side of the test facing Reno, in bopomofo, were all the answers, along with a rather rude comment about what the teacher could go do with himself.

And Reno just smiled.


	7. Serious

Author's note: Yeah, so, don't expect the next chapter to be out this quick--vacation is over and I'm back in school full-time, plus working, plus looking for a job before my visa expires. Yay! (death) I'm not going to have time to write until the end of March, if I'm lucky. So, um, yeah. Things go back to a trickle for a bit. Yeah. Hoo...

Chapter 7 - Serious

Summary: You could tell, the exact moment when Reno got serious.

One thing that in some ways never failed to bring a faint, amused smile to Rude's face was watching Reno studying. Reno was still quite bad at studying, but he was trying, and making floundering advancements.

But truthfully, what was funny was the fact that Tseng had, in fact, sent Reno all new textbooks...all geared towards Wutai children learning to read. Rude, to this day, still wasn't sure if it really was all Tseng had been able to find, or just Tseng's idea of a joke. Regardless, it was more than the slightest bit amusing to see Reno with his nose buried in a busily brightly-colored book or workbook full of oddly perky cartoon characters. More than one person had seen Reno with one of those books and, not realizing what it was, would begin to tease Reno about finding books appropriate to his level or some such.

...Those usually ended badly, either with the person taking the book and offering to read it to Reno as a bedtime story, then having their eyes bug out when they actually _saw_ what it was and Reno telling them smugly to go ahead and read it for us, or with Reno attempting with various degrees of success to make good on the threat he would issue of inserting the book into a rather unpleasant orifice for the hapless person stupid enough to try to give crap to a Turk.

Reno had, thankfully, taken the time to learn the romanization, even though he hadn't really wanted to have to learn more than he had to. But Rude had insisted, saying that the bopomofo made no sense to him and it was Reno's choice to either put romanization on things or study by himself. Reno had managed to go paler than normal at that and said hell, no; he needed his pay, and buckled down. Thanks to a simple input training program Tseng provided for him where the bopomofo character would appear and one had to type in the romanization, Reno got romanization down quickly enough (although there had been much cursing and yelling about how many drugs, bad ones, whoever had designed the romanization must have been doing when they came up with that when he first started out), and he explained to Rude how it was all pronounced. Rude got enough of a handle on that to roughly know if Reno was saying the right or wrong word if Reno said it slowly enough when Rude quizzed him with the flashcards, and that seemed best, since Reno usually burst out laughing if Rude tried to actually _say_ something in Wutai. The most memorable had been when Rude attempted to say the word for "dog" and apparently said something very, very different; Reno had cracked up laughing so hard he put his head on the desktop.

Rude still had to more or less hold Reno's hand as the man tried to study: neither Reno's patience nor his confidence in his study skills nor some other reticence on Reno's part that Rude hadn't figured out yet really gave Rude much of an option. But Rude found himself not minding all that much, rather enjoying watching Reno discover he was good at something that did not involve beating, killing, or blowing things up, and that he was, in fact, able to do something that completely flummoxed anyone else looking at it--it was as if Rude's complete inability to grasp the bopomofo at all gave Reno some confidence with himself in regards to learning something. And Reno, for all he seemed to exude confidence, especially about his job, tended to...really be far less confident than he should have been about his own intelligence. There had been something almost painful about watching Reno fall apart trying to figure out how learn things.

So if Rude found himself good-naturedly laughed at more than once, it was worth it.

--

"Good timing, partner," Rude said, looking up just as Reno walked in.

"Eh?" Reno said, blinking slightly in wary surprise. "That ain't what you _usually_ say when I show up twenty minutes late and hung-over."

Rude hung up the phone. "Usually, you don't luck out this much. That was Tseng. We're supposed to report to his office in ten minutes."

Reno grinned. "You're right, I _do_ got good timing. Got just enough time to choke down some coffee."

Rude frowned. "I don't think..." he began, when Reno grinned and held up a finger.

"C'mon, man. If I showed up _on time_, they would know I musta only just got here and we booked it."

Rude let out a choked snort of laughter. "You have a point. Drink your coffee."

--

Rude was mildly surprised by the people that were in the room--Tseng, he was expecting, but seeing Elena, the young trainee who had gotten on Reno's bad side already and who, the rumors went, was in"trainee hell" and goinng to stay there until she proved herself or quit, was. The even bigger shock, however, was Rufus Shinra.

That was when he knew, whatever, this was, it was big.

"Glad you could join us," Tseng said only somewhat dryly, as if he had been expecting Rude and Reno--well, Reno at any rate--to be late. "Have a seat."

The two men sat down, and Tseng gestured towards them with his chin to Elena. She immediately jumped up and handed them each a plain brown folder.

Reno's folder was easily twice as thick, if not three times, and Reno made a face that, to Rude's eyes, clearly said, "What the fuck, yo?"

"Your newest assignment," Tseng said. At almost the same time, both Rude and Reno opened the folders, Rude carefully and businesslike, Reno in a motion like a knife flick.

Rude had only the barest amount of time to begin perusing the materials when Reno said "Materia smuggling?" in surprise and raised an eyebrow.

Tseng nodded. "Materia and drugs. We're mainly trying to control the materia side of things. But it looks like the same routes are being used for both."

Rufus spoke next. "Basically, the same group is smuggling materia _out_ and potent _in_."

"Potent?" Reno said, sitting up. "Someone is importing _that_ shit?" he said, frowning. "That shit jacks people up but _good_."

"More worrisome for us, however, is the materia smuggling into Wutai," Rufus said. "Since the war ended, materia has been prohibited from being sent to Wutai. The last thing we need is Wutai getting materia again. So how exactly is this happening?"

"From what our sources say, it looks like a triangle trade of sorts. Money out of Wutai into Mideel, where the plant potent is made from, potala, is grown, and that's smuggled into Midgar, and from Midgar materia is smuggled out into Wutai," Tseng said. "We've just assigned people to handle the Mideel angle, but for now, we need to track down the people handling the materia shipping out of Midgar and who they're dealing with in Wutai. Which is where you come in," Tseng ended, and looked at Reno. "We suspect it's one of the northern mafia clans and not the Yamatan yakuza, since while they're more powerful and organized, they're also a lot more loyal to Kisaragi than the northern groups.

"Time to put that Wutai you speak to use."

Reno stared at him for a minute, and Rude had a hard time figuring out what his expression was before Reno slipped back into professional-mode. "Gotcha. Sir."

"For experience, Elena will be working with you two on this as well."

Both Rude and Reno nodded, and Elena gave them a faint smile. "Looking forward to it," she said.

Tseng began handing them more files. "More detailed information is in here. You are to report to me on the status of the investigation every week, more often if something major occurs. If you need any assistance," he said, staring at Reno for a long moment with slightly narrowed eyes, "let me know."

It was unspoken, but what Tseng meant past that was obvious. And what that was was "But don't need my assistance."

And judging by the look on Reno's face, he had read that loud and clear.

--

Tseng dismissed them not long after that, but Rude, Reno, and Elena stayed in the conference room to discuss the assignment by what seemed a wordless agreement.

Reno waved his folder in the air.

"All right, why the fuck is mine so thick when...oh, hell," Reno moaned, breaking off his whine when he saw some of the paperwork. "Aww, c'mon!" He buried his face in his hands. "Rude, partner, I gotta favor to ask ya."

Rude raised an eyebrow slightly. "And that is...?"

"SHOOT ME."

Rude ignored the request and reached over and picked up the file and flipped it open, wondering what had set Reno off.

Ahh. That was it then.

All of the extra paperwork in Reno's files was in Wutai. Pages upon pages of Wutai.

"I can't kill you, since no one can read any of this but you, but is a flesh wound acceptable?" Rude finally said, smiling faintly.

"Naww, that won't do jack. They'd just throw a potion at me," Reno moaned, making another of his expressive faces, this one an expression of a woebegone puppy that had been kicked a few times, before he buried his face in his hands.

It sometimes disturbed Rude, the images he got when trying to figure out Reno's faces, but it did serve to make things more interesting at times.

--

"Wow, potent smuggling, eh?" Elena said, finally looking up from her folder.

"Not our problem, yo" Reno said, shrugging. "Our job's the materia smuggling."

"But the potent..."

"Will be taken care of along with the materia aspect. If this is really being run by Wutai, what they're after is the materia, not the money from potent, so that aspect will dry up as well," Rude said calmly. "There will always be drugs in the slums and people using, and cleaning it up is not our problem."

"I can't even imagine why someone would start," Elena said, and Rude was very aware of just how young the girl really was. "Everyone knows how dangerous and addictive it is! I mean, is the buzz really that good?"

"Must be," Reno said shrugging, something about him curiously blank in a way Rude couldn't quite put his finger on--there was a faint tension in him that hadn't been there before; not enough to really alarm Rude, but enough to be make him notice. He doubted anyone else would even notice it at all; it was simply that he and Reno had been partnered together long enough that he knew Reno's reactions.

"Must be? You mean you don't know?" Elena said, sounding confused.

Reno gave Elena a look of disgusted confusion. "How in Shiva's name would I know?"

Elena's eyes widened, like she was surprised. "But you were in the slums, right? I mean, surely you tried...or knew someone who did, right? They had to at least tell you about it, right? So what's it _like_?"

"Elena, I think you wanna shut up," Reno said flatly.

"But--" she started. "I'm just _curious_!"

Reno's eye started the eye-twitching thing that usually indicated that he was about to start beating something with his baton, and Rude briefly considered getting involved to stop this before it went any further, when he decided this was surely just as important an aspect of Elena's training as anything else. She needed to learn how to read people, and Reno was one of the easiest people on the planet to read. "Elena, you're young an' stupid, so I'll say it one more time, an' slower this time. Shuuuuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuup."

Elena frowned angrily, narrowing her eyes and putting her hands on her hips. "I am not a child, in case you missed it. I'm here for a reason!"

"So stop actin' like one," Reno snapped.

Elena's eyes narrowed, and Rude suddenly had a very bad feeling.

"I just asked what potent is like. And I can hardly be blamed for asking you, since you kind of have the reputation you do. Word is you've had more substances running through your veins than have Hojo's experiments. There's got to be a reason, after all, why _you're_ on this case and not Tseng. For all I know, you could have been put on this because you've got every pusher and drug lord in the city on _speed dial_," Elena said, hands on her hips.

Rude noticed with something almost akin to horror that he could see the moment when Reno actually snapped...and snapped in a way that Rude had never seen before, and he realized he had made a major tactical error in allowing this to have happened.

Whatever happened next, this was not going to be pretty.

Before Rude could open his mouth to intervene, Reno narrowed his eyes. "Well, I did know a potent junkie. Knew one _real_ well," he said, his voice disturbingly calm and cold, words like a Blizzard, ice cold and with deadly aim. "And the main thing is 'knew.'"

What was coming next was bad, of that Rude had no doubt--Reno's eyes had gone cold and flat, and there was nothing good in the smile like a switchblade across his face. He knew what came next was going to be bad, and yet there was no way to stop it.

"Nothin'," Reno said, words were deliberate and suddenly disturbingly sweet and conversational and, like all Reno's weapons, aimed for a weak spot, "makes it glamorous an' makes ya wanna run _right out_ and get a hit as comin' home and finding your _ma_ face down dead in her own vomit when you're fifteen."

Almost instantly, Elena's jaw dropped and she looked horrified.

"We done now?" Reno said coolly, his voice dangerous.

"I--I mean...I didn't...I'm sorry," Elena stammered, eyes huge.

"Whatever," Reno said, and turned on his heel, walking out of the room. "I have work to do."

"Reno--!" Elena began, starting to head for the door, when Rude's hand dropped on her shoulder.

"Just drop it, Elena," Rude said softly, shaking his head. There was no reproach in his voice, and Elena wilted slightly.

"I always say too much," she said sadly. "I didn't mean any...I didn't know," she said, looking more and more distressed.

"I know."

"Tell him I'm sorry?" she said, sounding more like a plea than a request.

"I will," Rude said, letting his hand drop from Elena's shoulder.

"I'm so stupid," she muttered under her breath. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, _stupid_!" She closed her eyes and sighed. "I just didn't...I should have just...I kept on _talking_ even after last time, and I should have just...I mean, I didn't..." she said, biting her lip and looking upset.

"Elena," Rude said softly, stopping her words. "You didn't know. I didn't even know," Rude said, frowning slightly, as he was struck again by how close-mouthed Reno was about his past. It wasn't like any of them went around sharing their life stories or anything, but...well, with as talkative and open--sometimes far _too_ open--as Reno was, never once had he willingly said a single word about anything before he joined the Turks, and on some level it shocked Rude that he hadn't even noticed something like that. Reno had talked so much about everything _else_ that his family never came up--and certainly, Rude wasn't going to breach such a topic, not with his home life having been what it was. It was something Rude himself had never wanted to talk about, and on some level, he assumed that since he never wanted to talk about it and never brought such a thing up, then Reno must have been the same way.

But still, there was something...something odd about the way Reno got, whenever it came up--he got the same way, in some way, defensive and angry, and...withdrawn. It was as if all his natural exuberance just _reversed_ itself, and everything was pulled in with as much force as it was normally exuded _out_.

Rude blinked, pulling his thoughts back to the situation at hand. "I should find him before he does something gratuitous. If you'll excuse me." He gave her a faint smile and left, going after Reno.

"One of these days," Rude heard Elena say to herself as he left, "My big mouth is going to get me into trouble."

--

"You all right?" Rude said after a very long silence. He had left Elena and gone to his and Reno's office, suspecting that there were two places where Reno was likely to go, their office or the workout rooms, and had he chosen a workout room, he probably would have grabbed Rude so he would have an actual person he could fight, and more importantly, one who could keep up.

"Peachy," Reno said flatly, not looking up from his paperwork. "I'm readin' through the shit Tseng's got us on now. Mostly looks like it's a black trade network runnin' from Wutai and Midgar, with Mideel in the middle for the potala plant, like they said. We got some intelligence what's come in that hasn't been translated yet outta Wutai, and ain't I lucky, looks like I get to do it.

"I tell ya, I dunno what the big boss is thinking, ya know? My Wutai readin' ain't this good yet, yo," he said, making a face. "Tseng oughta be doin' this bit."

"But orders are orders," Rude said, his face showing nothing but thinking that something like this might be good for Reno, a chance to show how much he had accomplished in an incredibly short time and was capable of, as well as help Reno improve. Sitting around taking tests was one thing, but practical application was something else.

"...Yeah. Orders," Reno said, and made stabbing motions at the paperwork. "It said on one of those stupid little sheets that I needed to get all this shit translated in a fuckin' week, can ya believe that shit, so yeah. I get the feeling I'm not gonna be seein' the outside of this fuckin' office for the week it's gonna take," Reno said irritably. "And they had to give us this on a Friday. My weekend is officially _cancelled_, ain't it."

There was still something jittery and jumpy about Reno, but Rude decided that this was not the time--the time would be later, and preferably with a place that had either matting to soften his falls or lots of alcohol. So for now he'd let Reno distract himself with his work, but later would be something else.

"That bad?" Rude said mildly.

"By the time I figure out how to read this shit, he'll be back and there'll be enough materia floatin' around Wutai that you'd think a mako reactor exploded all over the place," Reno said sourly. "This suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks!" he whined, dropping the paper and slouching in his chair.

Rude just stared at him, saying nothing, and after awhile Reno's shoulders slumped more and he let out an annoyed sound. "I take that back; _you_ suck," he said, and made a face as his picked up the page and squinted at it again.

"Wish I could help," Rude said. "But since I can't do much with the Wutai, I can go over everything we have in English with Elena in the conference room while you work, and make you some coffee before I go."

"That'd be great, man," Reno said, some of the tension going out of his shoulders, probably, Rude guessed, from Rude both getting Elena out of his hair for a while and for not trying to pursue any of what had come out earlier, and Rude decided that as soon as everything was translated, or at least far enough along that there wouldn't be a problem, he was taking Reno out for a lot of alcohol. "You know you're the best partner ever, right?"

Rude smiled faintly and got Reno a coffee. Later. For now, all he could offer was a cup of coffee and a little bit of peace.

--

As Reno had glumly predicted, he did indeed spend most of the next several days in the office. Every day Rude left sooner than Reno, something that had never happened before, and three days over the next week, Rude had come in to find Reno asleep either at his desk in the same suit as the night before, or curled up on the sofa with his jacket thrown over him as a makeshift blanket, an empty box of take-out in the trash and empty cans of soda and coffee littering the floor. Rude suspected, however, based on how Reno was there when Rude came in in the mornings and still there when he left, that Reno had probably stayed there most of the week, taking advantage of having an extra suit in his locker, a cleaner's nearby, and there being showers in the building.

While Reno holed himself up in their office looking ready to eviscerate any who might dare come near and disturb him, Rude took the time to work more closely with Elena, choosing one of the conference rooms rather than his and Reno's office, figuring that it would be best for Reno to be left in peace as he translated and to ensure Elena didn't say anything to set the man off while he was already frazzled and stressed out. Elena quickly noticed Reno wasn't coming to any of their meetings, deflating each time when only Rude showed up, and Rude finally told her that it would just be them for this week.

"Is he that mad at me?" Elena said meekly, staring at her hands.

"That has nothing to do with it," Rude said, pushing his sunglasses up. "It's more that he has a week to translate quite a bit of Wutai, and his knowledge of written Wutai is along the lines of an elementary school student's. He's barely left the office to go home to sleep."

Elena's eyes were large. "I...I never would have imagined Reno of all people would be pulling overtime deskwork."

Rude let out a soft sigh. "And that's one of your problems," he said, not unkindly. "It's something that will hurt you as a Turk. You make assumptions based on the surface," he said, steepling his fingers. "Things are very rarely as they seem, and thinking they are will only slow you down."

Elena colored and opened her mouth, but then decided against it and didn't speak.

"Part of my job," Rude said after a long silence, "in training you is to teach you how not to do that."

"Yes sir," Elena said softly.

"But for now," Rude said, opening a file of freshly translated intelligence, "Let's simply work on what's in these files, and what might be here beyond what's surface."

"Yes sir," Elena said again, and Rude thought there might be some potential in the girl yet, something that was reaffirmed over the week as they worked together. Elena's biggest problems were her youth and her assumptions, as well as a tendency to speak too much, he noticed. But she was bright with a quick mind and a fair amount of attitude; Rude was sure that once she got a bit older and had more experience under her belt, she might turn out all right.

Provided, of course, that she didn't say something stupid and get her fool self killed. Judging by her track record with Reno, Rude figured if she made it through this assignment alive, she'd stand in pretty good odds.

"His mom was a potent junkie, eh?" Elena said to herself one day. "Maybe that's why the guy is so spastic. It'd explain a lot since potent _is_ supposed to cause attention problems and learning disabilities in children..."

...And maybe, Rude thought, feeling pain begin to pound behind his temples, her mouth not getting her killed would take a miracle.

--

By the time the week was over Reno had somehow managed to translate all of documents and filed them, Rude took one look at him and scrapped his plans to take Reno out for a beer or ten and instead suggested mildly that perhaps Reno should go home and get some sleep, and it was very telling that Reno wearily agreed, despite the fact that it was Friday night.

It was about a week after that, however, that things began to happen, mainly thanks to them actually getting out into the field.

And Elena had, oddly enough, been right about one thing--it turned out that Reno did indeed have a connection with one of the more notorious pushers in Midgar, but from the looks of things when Reno saw the name in the intelligence data--Reno had made a face, threw his hands in the air, and let out a rather long string of obscenities--Rude was guessing it wasn't the most friendly of connections.

"Let me handle this fuckstick," Reno had said outside of a pool house that was fairly obviously a place where it was wise to keep a firm grip on one's wallet and not to let Elena out of their sight until she had more training. "I know this guy goin' way back. He was a fuckstick back then and is a fuckstick now."

'Fuckstick' seemed to be Reno's epithet of choice for the pusher, one S. Ellesporte. It had taken Reno a good while to finally settle on one, but over the last day and a half, 'fuckstick' had finally won out over 'shit stain,' 'tonberry scrotum-licker,' and 'Odin's buttplug.'

At some point, Rude figured, Elena would stop looking so scandalized by Reno's gift for metaphor.

"Right, partner," Rude said, and Elena nodded, looking as if she was a bit nervous but trying not to show it.

And with that Reno walked right in, and had a few words with the person in front, words mainly, however said with Reno reaching back and letting his baton be clearly visible, and their suited appearance sink in. From there, the man let out a terrified little "eek!" and pointed to the back, telling them to go on in. Reno said thank you with a gracious smile that made the man back up shaking, and off into the pool hall they went. When they got to the back, Reno scanned the area, smiled a snarling little smile, and beelined for a man of about the same age as him at one of the pool tables in the back.

He reached the man, and in a movement full of false casualness, draped his arm around Ellesporte's shoulders. "Heya there, Sanith," Reno said. "Long time no see," he added, and smiled.

--

"So. I hear you're running potent now. Way to reach for them stars, eh?" Reno said, smirking. "And I'd've figured you to be in jail."

"And I'd've figured you to take after your mama and be a strung-out rentboy," Ellesporte said, sneering.

"Aww, still hopin' for a chance at my ass?" Reno said, fluttering his eyelids and mock-pouting. "I'm so flattered."

Ellesporte raised a fist and looked ready to swing when Reno, quick as a switchblade, pulled out his baton and had it at Ellesporte's neck, his finger lightly playing over the power. "Go ahead, gimme an excuse," Reno said, his voice toying and seductive, like he was inviting the man to his bed.

"What the fuck do you want, you little freak?" Ellesporte said, almost sounding brave, but betrayed by the widening of his eyes and they way they flickered around, looking for an escape.

"A little info," Reno said, still using that sinuous, feline voice as he put his baton away.

"And why would I want to help _you_ out?"

Rude stepped forward slightly. "Don't consider it helping out Reno, then," he said, voice low so it wouldn't carry. "Consider it helping _us_," he said, looking at the man over his glasses and quite certain that the inherent threat of who and what they were carried through.

Apparently, it didn't. "Hunh," Sanith said, eyeing Rude, a smirk on his face. "Your taste always did run to the exotic, eh, Reno? First that little wonk ya usedta run with, now..."

"Now ya shut your face before I shut it for ya," Reno said conversationally.

"So whatever happened to that wonk, eh? The two of you were practically attached to each other's dicks when we were kids."

Reno turned slightly to Elena. "Now this point here, kid," Reno said, "Is where we start beatin' people with sticks until information we can _use_ comes out. Let's go for a little walk, Sanith."

And then Reno smiled a predatory little smile, and Rude didn't blame Sanith at all for going pale.

--

It didn't take long, really, before they had a name. The Li Clan.

--

"Now we hit the Wutai area," Reno said when they got back to the car, absentmindedly wiping a bit of blood off his face. "I ain't got many contacts down there no more, but it shouldn't be too hard to shake people down. An' where the fuck did I put the keys?" he said suddenly, patting himself down.

Rude frowned slightly at Reno saying he had no contacts in the Wutai areas, but decided, based on everything he had picked up up until now, that asking why would not be a very good idea.

Elena opened her mouth, and before she could say something, Rude moved over and covered her mouth with his hand, then shook his head "no." Elena frowned but nodded and he let go, grateful that Reno had been too involved in searching for the keys, letting out a stream of curses as he did so.

"Fuck me, did I drop 'em?! They must've fallen out of my pocket when I was punching Sanith's face in. Hold up, I'm gonna backtrack," Reno said, looking pissed. Rude nodded.

"We can always hotwire the car if you can't find them," Rude said.

"Yeah, but Tseng'll pitch a fit. Gimme five," he said, and headed back the way they had come.

As soon as he was gone, Elena whirled on him. "Why did you do that?!"

He regarded her slowly then spoke. "I assumed you were going to ask Reno why he has no contacts in the Wutai sections."

"...yeah," she said, sounding surprised.

"That was why I stopped you."

"But...why?" she said, looking confused.

Rude let out a small sigh. "I don't know what happened with Reno and his Wutai friend. But I do know it's better not to ask him. There's no reason to upset him, not about this. Whatever it is," he said carefully.

Elena wilted slightly, as if she was remembering her own gaffes. "I...yeah. Yes. OK," she said, nodding. "I'll leave it alone."

Rude nodded slightly. "Thank y--"

"I got the fuckers!" Reno's voice yelled out. Rude looked up to see Reno coming over, holding the keys aloft like a prize and looking pleased with himself. "So let's blow this pop stand. More heads to bust elsewhere, yo," he said, and jumped into the driver's seat.

"Lead the way," Rude said, settling into the seat next to him, as Elena climbed quietly into the back.

"And hey, we get there quick enough, we might be able to still get in lunch at some of the places where you don't order in Wutai, you don't eat," Reno said with a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes, and gunned it.

--

True to his word, Reno dragged them to an empty restaurant, practically a literal hole in a wall, that look liked like a non-Wutai had never seen the inside of it. Someone who looked like she was running the place barked, "No English menu!" at them irritably, not seeming to care one bit that they were obviously Turks.

That was when Reno raised an eyebrow and let out a string of Wutai, and the next thing you knew, she was suddenly all smiles and they had a menu with Wutai all over it. Elena looked at the menu as if she wasn't quite sure which side was up, and Rude glanced at it before deciding to leave everything to Reno. Which was good, because one thing he'd say for Reno, the man had the best taste for Wutai food. Rude had no idea what it was that Reno ordered, but he did know he hoped he'd have it again at some point in the future. He and Elena ate quietly, not quite sure what else to do with themselves, as Reno joked around with the now non-irritable woman running the place. Whatever he was saying, he was certainly winning points with the woman, seeming to be completely charming him. By the end of the meal, they were laughing like old friends, something which seemed to complete amaze Elena, judging by her wide-eyed stare and jaw hanging open. And, he noticed, seemed on some level to piss her off, because she had been getting more and more tense the longer and longer Reno spent chatting with the older woman, from time to time pointedly looking at her watch.

Something the older woman seemed to notice, because she said something and gestured over at Elena, and Reno said something back, and suddenly the older woman was throwing her head back and laughing, and whatever Reno had said stuck, because the woman would occasionally look over at Elena and start snickering. Which improved Elena's rapidly escalating bad mood not at all.

Finally, they got up to leave, and Reno shooed them out, saying he wanted to say good-bye to "Auntie Hong" and get a map so he could find his way back. Elena made a disgusted noise and all but stomped out...which resulted in "Auntie Hong" cracking up laughing and Reno snickering. Rude held a sigh in but just barely, knowing he was going to have to deal with Elena once he went outside, and headed out.

"What the HELL is his problem?!" Elena exploded. "He has to be the most idiotic, unfocused, unprofessional asshole I've ever met!"

"Yes, he is," Rude said, agreeing amicably. "Most of those, at least. He is very much unfocused and unprofessional and an undeniable asshole. But one thing he is not," he said, focusing on Elena coolly, "is an idiot. Despite appearances."

He fell silent, ignoring Elena as she fumed. And when Reno finally came out twenty minutes later, she exploded again.

"Was that necessary, Reno? We have a job to do! Your fucking stomach and your getting your kicks laughing at me and you taking your sweet time getting some stupid map back here, none of that could have waited for you being on your own time?" she said, winding up for what looked like a hailstorm of abuse.

"Yeah, it coulda," Reno said, oddly gleeful. "But if I had, we wouldn't've gotten any information about the Li clan," he said, and grinned. "It pays to be nice to people who make food, yo," he said. "They tend to know a whole lot more than you think."

Elena's mouth dropped open and stayed that way for a good several minutes, and Reno just looked smug.

--

On the drive out, Reno starting filling him on everything he had learned from the woman he had started calling Auntie Hong.

"Turns out," he said, weaving easily through traffic, "that lately, there's been a big uprush of Wutai mafia movin' in. Looks like ol' Sanith was right; it's the Li clan. They was always kinda weak in Wutai--Fuck you, grandma, this is the fast lane! MOVE IT!--but it looks like they're trying to build some power up or somethin', and getting a foothold here in Midgar, 'since Wutai ain't where nothin' is anymore, thanks to ShinRa--And hey, fucker, cut me off again and I shove your tailpipe up YOUR tailpipe!--so here's the place to be."

"Are you sure you can trust her?"

Reno grinned. "Looks like she's old school, yo. Been here forever and remembers what it was like living here during the war an' doesn't like the shit hittin' the fan again--figures it's best for everybody to keep their head down and don't cause no trouble, since she knows what ShinRa troops did to Wutai, and doesn't want them comin' back, and fuckers coming in and causin' trouble is nothin' _but_ trouble. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's good, and even if it ain't--Suck my dick, asshole!--it still will get us to the Li clan eventually."

Rude nodded, but Elena in the back frowned. "How does she know anything?" she said.

Reno chuckled. "Good question, kid. It's cause she runs a little restaurant in the middle of nowhere what looks like nobody ever goes to. People who don't wanna be seen go to places like that, and they do like everyone does. Forget the people workin' there have ears and can hear--No, motherfucker, you did NOT just cut me off!--just fine."

Elena looked like she was impressed despite herself, and nodded.

"I gotta do some canvassing down there, though," Reno said, thoughtfully. "Look for some people, start making contacts, do some follow up with a couple names Tseng gave me, but that ain't gonna take too long."

"What about the woman, Hong, was it?" Rude asked, and continued when Reno nodded. "If people find out she talked to us..."

"I told her not to tell nobody nothin' about us being here--and if someone asked, we were a bunch of Turks and didn't none of us speak no Wutai, and she fed us because we're Turks and she knew it. It'll fly," he said, narrowing his eyes. "An' nobody's gonna think any of the lot of _us_ can speak Wutai," he said, grinning slightly. "Plus? Whose gonna think some snappish lady at a restaurant knows _anything_ about how the mob is fixin' to roll?" he finished with a grin, pulling into the ShinRa Tower parking lot smoothly. "I did good, yeah?" Reno said, preening as they got out of the car.

"You did good," Rude said, and, as much as it looked like it killed her to admit, Elena added a grudging, "Yeah, yeah you did," and Reno looked so smug it looked like it was taking all of Elena's willpower not to hit him.

--

The next few weeks were slow at first, but things began bit by bit to pick up--there were more late nights, he and Reno slipping out into the Wutai areas, with Reno slinking around meeting nervous-looking Wutai and Rude doing as Reno asked, namely to "just stand there and look like a badass, aiight? And anybody comes around, break their face."

Gradually, things started to seem to come together, with Reno finding people to pass information to him, and the information from his contacts and the names Tseng passed on to him was getting actually starting to be worth things.

The big break, however, came when they were leaving ShinRa Tower, and some slip of a Wutai boy, not more than thirteen or fourteen, and passed Reno a note before vanishing into the shadows.

"I see why it took us ten years to beat Wutai," Rude said, more than a little impressed at the kid having gotten to them so easily.

Reno laughed. "I always knew why, man. They're all a bunch of crazy fuckers, yo."

"So what'd he give you?"

"Yeah, 'cause I have SOLDIER eyes what can see through folded up origami," Reno said, sticking out his tongue. But he began unfolding the note, cursing the Yamatan Wutai for coming up with paper-folding.

When he finally got it open, he glanced over it, frowned, and did a double take. Then, let out a soft, "Odin's balls, man," and looked up at Rude. "Something big is goin' down, man. It looks like one of the big Li guys is rollin' in and soon."

Rude immediately put his car keys back in his pocket. "Back to the office?"

"Back to the office," Reno said, and turned on his heel. "Call Elena, yo, and tell her to get her perky ass back here."

As soon as they got back into the office, Reno said down with the note and Rude picked up the phone and called Elena's PHS, leaving a message for her to come back as soon as she got it.

"So what's going down?"

Reno peered at the paper. "OK. It says...there's gonna be a big meeting at five tomorrow at _wuzi_ I can't read, more shit I can't read, somewhere. Yeah, that was useful. Where the fuck is Tseng? Make him read this shit," Reno said in irritation.

"Where Tseng is is very easy to answer. He's not here," Rude said, shrugging slightly. "He's out on another mission that seems to be extremely important, judging by all the SOLDIERS running around and by the fact that Tseng personally is involved. Since Tseng is gone, I'm afraid that only leaves you."

"Swell," Reno said dryly, then sighed and sat up straight, a tell-tale sign that he had buckled down. As he settled into his task, Reno started reading the paper aloud, mumbling incoherently in Wutai as he tried to figure out the characters he didn't completely know, finally giving up and pulling out a Wutai character learner's dictionary, continuing to mumble to himself in irritated sounding Wutai as he looked up the word.

Rude thought to himself that it would never cease to be a little bit strange, to hear Wutai coming out of Reno's mouth. It wasn't that it was odd that Reno could speak another language--Rude fully believed that Reno was far smarter than he gave himself credit for, he had just never had any reason to make anything beyond a rudimentary attempt at utilizing it--but that it was just odd, to hear Wutai that was so native from someone who so obviously wasn't. Wutai was a harsh language on the surface, rising and falling abruptly, each word clipped and short, but for some reason...it fit Reno. Perhaps that was the oddness to it, that something so foreign should match so well.

...And Rude still had no idea how it was that Reno could make heads or tails of the dictionary at all. How to use it completely flummoxed Rude, but Reno was pretty good with it, occasionally frowning and drawing a Wutai character in the air with his finger and counting in Wutai as he did so.

Reno's cell phone rang suddenly and he reached for it. He glanced at the number it was displaying and his demeanor seemed to change. When he answered the phone, he did so in Wutai, saying something that sounded like "Way?" to Rude's ears. He nodded to it a few times, then impatiently gestured at Rude like he was writing, asking for pen and paper.

Rude had begun to pick up a bit of the occasional Wutai, enough to know Reno was agreeing with whatever the other person was saying. Then Reno started talking so fast Rude couldn't follow it at all. And when he began writing, he got that same, perfect posture, pen in a strange position thing happening, and wrote quickly in hurried mix of Wutai characters and bopomofo letters.

"Jackpot," Reno said, smiling a predatory little smile when he hung up the phone. "There's definitely gonna be a meeting tomorrow, and I just got it confirmed who's gonna be there and where. We go right after, we should be able to pick up one of the 'attendees' and have a little chat with 'em."

Reno pulled out a clean sheet of paper and his back went ramrod straight as he started writing something in Wutai, and curiosity finally got the best of Rude.

"Something I've noticed," Rude said, not sure how to broach the subject, but decided to just go the direct route, "is that your posture changes when you write Wutai. Your back goes as straight as a trooper on guard duty. Any reason?"

Reno's left eyebrow quirked up. "Eh, that?" Reno grinned lopsidedly. "Can't help it. The person who taught me some wuzi used to be a real freak about posture. And she hit hard."

"Someone tried to teach you before?"

Reno scratched the back of his neck and grinned an embarrassed smile. "Well, I dunno if 'tried to teach' is the right way to put it, especially since trying to teach me nothin' don't work too well. More like, once I got too big to get the back of my head smacked when I fucked up, my punishment was copying restaurant menus in Wutai, with a brush, and if I messed up a single one, I had to start all over again. There's a _reason _why I didn't never have no problems with any of the wuzi what had to do with food."

Rude recognized a chance when he saw it, and took it. "Did you ever learn anything else? Characters, I mean."

Reno got a faint smile on his face. "Yeah. Auntie Qian taught me how to write my name. She always threatened to sit me down and teach me how to read and write proper, but, well, never quite got to happen," he finished, trailing off slightly. He abruptly shook his head, shaking off whatever nostalgic mood had hit him and making a face. "Shit, man, how the fuck do you do that?! I mean, what the fuck, when did I grow boobs and turn into Elena?! Look at me man, do I got boobs? Am I blond? No. So why the fuck am I babbling like her? ARGH!" Reno said, finally throwing his hands in the air and making a frustrated noise before going back to writing his note.

Rude also realized when he had gotten all the information he was going to, and so he nodded and let Reno bury himself back into making arrangements, all the while processing a little bit more of what he had learned.

---

When Elena got in, they worked out a rough game plan--grab the head honcho coming in after the meeting and get every bit of information out of him they could using whatever means necessary--because even if the Lis reacted badly--the mafia clans tended to like retaliation, after all, it worked well for ShinRa because it would give them an excuse to end things the quickest way possible: killing them all. The next day, they were up and ready to go well before the meeting was to be held, and headed to a nearby building to wait.

Reno was all but thrumming with energy, watching the building through binoculars and listening to what was going on through a headphone--they had had the entire building secretly wired the night before and would go through all the intelligence there at a later date.

Meaning the whole thing with taking Shi wasn't out of necessity. Rude knew it for what it was--it was a challenge to the Li clan, making it clear ShinRa knew what was going on and there were involved, and putting the ball in their court.

It would all end the same, though.

"They're wrapping up," Reno said suddenly, slipping the binoculars back into his pocket and taking off his headphone. "And I just got Shi's route out--he's switchin' guards with the homegrown here as a decoy and goin' out last."

"So how do you want to handle the guards?" Rude asked calmly. This whole case was Reno's show, and he wanted to make sure Elena knew it--she tended to look to him for vertification and guidance, even though Reno was clearly the one who knew the most what was going on. She still had a lot to learn, about far more than what their job entailed on paper, and he suspected that was why she had been assigned to them on this case, where even Rude half of the time felt like he had no idea what was going on.

"Get in our way, we cap 'em," Reno said, shrugging. "And they probably will. A pre-emptive capping might work best," he said eyes narrowing as he thought. "No witnesses, neither."

Rude nodded.

"You take out the guards, I'll get Shi. I'll distract 'em."

"How?"

Reno smiled, then opened his mouth. And what came out was a short string of Wutai, something with far too many sh's and r's and a random "how" for good measure, and Rude just smiled faintly with a look of "OK, then," and nodded his head, figuring Reno at least knew what he was talking about.

Hopefully.

Watching Reno on the hunt was something almost hard to believe. He slipped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves to look less Turk-like, tugging at his pants so they slung lower around his hips, and unbuttoning the lower buttons on his shirt so it was held on just barely by two buttons around the center, showing a slight, pale sliver of belly which amazed Rude slightly with its sheer paleness--even though it stood to reason the man would be that pale all over, it never quite seemed to really stick that Reno would _actually_ be that white all over. Reno ran his fingers through his hair, doing something to his hair that made it hang wild and shaggy around his face, similar and yet somehow completely different from normal. Reno put his goggles and baton on top of his jacket, then shoved them at Elena. "Lose those and I deck you good, yo," he said, letting go once he saw Elena had a hold of them, and running his fingers through his hair again. "That damn jacket cost way fuckin' more than something not made from Odin's fuzzy magical butt hair should have."

He grinned, looking more like a punk out for a night on the town than a Turk, save for the gleam in his light eyes. "Well, off to make a distraction. Rude, shoot the guards from the roof, ai'ight? Elena, call ShinRa Tower and have them come get all this shit here like NOW, and go get the car an' bring it around to the other side of that alleyway. Be there _ten minutes_ after I make contact with them or else I get you fired if I live through it, got it?"

Elena nodded, eyes wide.

"Good girl," Reno said, and laughed. Elena headed out, pulling out her PHS as she did, and Reno down looked at himself ruefully. "Been a while since I pulled this one, yo."

"This what?" Rude said, taking a moment to pause in his reach for his sniper gear.

"This con," Reno said, touching his tongue against the corner of his lip. "Me and Jie had it down good, y'know? Money was tight for both of us, with my mom being a junkie and his mom working her fingers to the bone. And _lots_ of fuckers out there like kids in ways they shouldn't, yo. So we figured out how to get what _we_ wanted without giving the perverts what _they_ wanted. While some pedo chatted up to one of us, the other lifted their wallet.

"Then, kick the guy in the balls and run, yo." Reno laughed. "Never failed, neither. Figured the pervs deserved it. Man, we were _such_ stupid little shits.

"And now, time for me to make my entrance," he said, and grinned, eyes almost glittering in excitement. "Make sure you get all the bodyguards and quick, before they make me a messy smear on the pavement, yeah? I ain't got no gun or nothin' right now, and I'm gonna be in too close of quarters to cast nothin'."

Rude nodded.

"Good. And make sure after you cap 'em all, you get down here fast as you can so you can help me get Shi into the car."

"Gotcha, partner," Rude said, nodding and giving Reno a stiff thumbs up. Reno laughed and slapped Rude on the shoulder, then headed to the fire escape and climbed down quickly, half swinging with a smooth, cat-like grace in places as he went down. Rude took a moment to admire Reno's sheer _agility_--Rude didn't think he'd ever been that agile, even when he had been Reno's size years and years ago--before grabbing his sniper rifle and heading to the roof. Once on the roof, he unpacked his sniper rifle quickly and settled into position, watching Reno on the hunt through his sniper focus.

Reno got to the alleyway he had indicated to Elena ahead of Shi and his entourage, leaning against a building with one foot resting against it, looking for all the world like a rentboy trolling for a customer, all of the even vague semblance he had to a Turk completely gone. As Shi and the others approached, he came out slightly, hips swinging, and Rude could uncomfortably imagine what look Reno must have had on his face.

As well as uncomfortably imagine how Reno must have learned to play the part that convincingly--trolling for pedophiles to rob.

"Stupid little shits" indeed.

It looked, at first, like Shi was going to walk past, but suddenly he stopped and whirled, staring at Reno after Reno called something out to him, and Shi let something out quickly. Reno laughed, throwing his head back, then nodded, and Rude had an idea what had happened--Reno had probably switched to Wutai, and that was always enough to give anyone pause. He sidled slightly closer to Shi, pink tongue flashing out to lick his lips, and ran one hand up Shi's arm. Then all of a sudden he seemed to falter slightly--Rude couldn't tell what it was, but even from here, he could tell something had happened, and Reno and Shi both went stock-still looking at each other. He didn't know what had happened or bother to take the time to let it play out--it was something unexpected, and "unexpected" in situations like this was _bad_, so when one of the bodyguards started to make a move towards Reno a second later, Rude aimed and fired.

It was a good shot.

Things happened very quickly after that. In the sudden confusion, Reno whirled and delivered a quick, tidy blow to the back of Shi's head, and kicked the bodyguard closest to him in the stomach. Rude quickly shot the other bodyguards, taking them out before they could register what was happening. As soon as they were down and staying down, Rude dismantled the gun and grabbed it and the other supplies they had bought, and started down the escape as quickly as he could. He was about halfway down when Elena got there, and he shoveled the unconscious Shi into the back. He could hear Reno hiss something at Elena and the back of the trunk popped open. When he got down, Reno was quickly trying to heft the dead bodyguards in as Elena tied up Shi in the car.

"I got that, partner," Rude said, patting Reno on the shoulder. Reno looked...well, he looked something was a little off, like he was coming off of a Confuse.

"Yeah, you better. You're twice my size. I'm delicate," Reno said, shaking whatever it had been off quickly and making a mock-haughty face, but still looking pale despite the fighting they had just finished. "Besides, you made the mess."

Rude just rolled his eyes and quickly fit two of the bodies in, deciding he would try to find out later, preferably when Elena wasn't around because if Elena was around Reno probably wouldn't tell Rude anything of substance, what had happened. "That third one's not gonna work."

"Oh, fuck me," Reno groaned, putting his hands on his hips and scowling. "Lessee. Shi ain't gonna be unconscious long. Car only seats four. It's you, me, Elena, and Shi. Eh, well, OK, Elena's small but Shi ain't. Elena, me, and the stiff can fit in the back," Reno said, and grinned, looking thankfully back to normal. "It'll be good for her. Trainin', yeah?"

--

Even from the front seat, Rude could tell that Reno was more keyed-up than was to be expected. Elena didn't seem to notice--but then, she was a delicate shade of green thanks to the corpse sandwiched in the seat between her and Reno, and she seemed more concerned with keeping the bloody areas of the corpse off of her clothing than with Reno.

Shi, thankfully, was still blessedly unconscious. And with the way Reno was keeping a sharp eye on Shi and gripping his baton as if he was itching to use it, it was probably a good thing for Shi as well that he had not yet rejoined the land of the living.

Rude drove carefully, keeping the speed limit, even though he wanted to get to ShinRa headquarters as quickly as possible--there was a tension in the air far beyond what he was expecting, coming from Reno humming like a live wire.

One thing Rude knew very, very well were explosives, and if Reno was a bomb, Rude would be running for cover right now or praying he had time to defuse it.

Defusing Reno was doable, he knew, but just as dangerous as trying to defuse a bomb, if not more so--there was no guide for defusing Reno, but there were a lot of traps in the trying. Tonight, he was guessing, was a night that was going to call for violence of some sort, focused if they were lucky; unfocused if they were not.

He almost found himself hoping that Shi would be difficult.

--

From the get-go, it was not a normal interrogation. Reno's normal interrogation technique tended to be similar to what he had used on Ellesporte--sarcastic and baiting--or of a more insinuating kind, full of charms and smiles and an underlying "And after this, the beating starts" that tended to work wonders.

This, however, was something different; something Rude had never seen before.

And he didn't understand a word of it.

Once they got back to the ShinRa Tower and to an interrogation room, Reno had tied Shi down, hit him with a Restore, and, as soon as the man was conscious, Reno started in Wutai, and Rude and Elena just sat back and watched.

Something had definitely happened when Reno and Shi had first run into each other; it was obvious from the look on Shi's face when he came to completely. His lip had curled up and he had snarled something in Wutai that resulted in Reno bringing force into the proceedings a lot sooner than was necessary, striking the man hard in the face and snapping at him in harsh, guttural Wutai.

At one point, Reno seemed to be actually getting information from the man...but by that point, the man had seen the business end of Reno's electrified baton.

But it wasn't long before things got odd, with Reno breathing hard and all but snarling; the very image of tension and barely-contained rage which occasionally bubbled over into Shi being hit or shocked.

And then things went more into the unexpected--the man said something else, something in a disturbingly mocking tone, and Reno got a strange look on his face, one Rude had never seen before--something between shocked and feral, with a healthy touch of "about to pass out" thrown in.

Shi got a look on his face that was, in Rude's opinion, far too smug for someone in his position. "We're back now," he sneered, switching to English. "You think you Turks could keep the Wu clan out?"

Rude blinked slightly. The _Wu_ clan? Up until now, everything in their intelligence had indicated a different group, the _Li_ clan.

He snapped his attention back to Shi, who was still talking. "We're back, and we're going to finish _everything_ we started here." Then the man switched to Wutai and said something with a mocking smile that Rude couldn't even begin to fathom--and what it might have been really wasn't that important just then.

"Hey, partner, you all right?" Rude let out suddenly--Reno's face had gone an almost bloodless pale, whiter than Rude had ever seen or even thought possible, and he looked like he was about to pass out. Then something harsh and ugly crossed Reno's frighteningly pale face, the expression sharp and quick as a whip crack.

"No," Reno said flatly, and then shot Shi in the head.


	8. Get a Job

Di ba hua - Gong zuo [Get a Job

Notes: I found a site that had some examples from a book in China called "Things Parents Should NOT to Say to Their Kids," and once I stopped cracking up, promptly stole the best lines for Jie's mom to say, because YES. XD Part of why I was laughing so hard was because I could see her saying _every single one of them_, especially, "Don't worry. No one saw us."

...God, I love Jie's mom. I make _no_ bones about this. Of all the OC's I've created, she is, by far and hands down, my favorite. I love her in all her surly, sullen, short-tempered, bad-parent glory.

Also, "Tsai" is romanized in pinyin as "Cai," but all the people with that name I know go by "Tsai," and so "Cai" looks funny to me. So, yeah. But then, "Tseng" should be "Ceng," so _hey_. Precedent!

--

After Jie's mom had yelled for a good ten minutes, Reno just grinned lazily and said, "_Aww, c'mon Auntie Qian! Just try and tell me it don't look good._" He tilted his head back and brushed his hair back with his hand, giving her a clear view of his newly-pierced ear. At fifteen, you were old enough to get pierced without parental consent, and so the day before, Reno, with a grin on his face and a "Happy birthday to ME," went to the first place he could find open and had dropped the gil. "_Just try and tell me it don't._"

Jie's mom got that _look_ on her face, and Reno's grin widened. "_Yeah, I knew it. It looks good, yeah_?"

She let out an annoyed sound, trying to bite back a smile. _"It was still a stupid thing to do!_"

"_But it looks good?_"

"_...But it looks good._"

Reno let out a laugh. "_I love making your chew outs fall flat,_" he said cheekily, then leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek and ducked away before she could more than swat at him half-heartedly. The swat ended up turning into her toying with his hair, and Reno had to stop himself from all but leaning into her hand. He'd never admit it--or rather, he would, if that meant he got more--but sitting there with Auntie Qian playing with his hair while Jie tried his damnedest to ignore them both while he practiced the _guzheng_ he was rapidly getting better was easily the highlight of Reno's day whenever it happened.

"_You should grow all your hair out, Xiao Hong. It would look so nice, all that pretty red hair_!"

Reno could feel his eye twitching. "_Yeah, so you can start braiding it and putting flowers or ribbons in it the second my back is turned_?_ I can't keep your hands off it enough as it is now!_" he said, complaining even as he fractionally leaned in more to her hand as if worried she might stop._ "You keep tellin' me I look like a girl; I ain't making it easier for you_. Shit no!" Reno said, shuddering.

"_But you're so pretty. And so pale, like a flower! You have the prettiest skin_!"

"_Whaaaat? Aw, cut it out already!"_ he moaned. "_Man, I oughta get a tattoo or something to make me less pretty and more cool or something_..."

"_A tattoo?! Don't you dare_!" Jie's mom yelled. "_Tattoos are only for criminals and outcasts!"_ she said, looking scandalized.

"_Maybe in __**Wutai**_ _Ma,_" Jie said from his playing, rolling his eyes.

"_Tattoos are cool, yo_," Reno said, nodding. "_And that place had such cool face ones..._"

"Lei Nuo, don't you think it!" Jie's mom said in her heavily accented English, looking absolutely horrified. "No face tattoo! _Facial tattoos are for outcasts! And your face is so pretty..._" she finished, reaching out to pat his cheek.

Reno groaned. "Aww, c'mon! Enough with the '_piaoliang_' thing!" he said, batting at her hands. "_Jie, are you DONE practicing yet? Your mom's feeling me up again!_"

That got him a smack upside the head he knew he fully deserved, and he answered it with another cheeky grin. "_See? She can't keep her hands off me!_"

Jie's mom looked like she very much wanted to hit him again, but couldn't. "_You used to be so sweet and cute. What happened?_"

"_Puberty!_"

Jie's mom got that eyetwitchy look that made Reno grin more, and Jie made an irritated noise. "_I give up,_" he said, slipping the plectra from the fingers of his right hand. "_It's not like I can practice with all the noise you two are making._"

"_And you're __**not**__ making noise?_" Reno said, eyeing the _guzheng_. Jie had gotten it into his head about five years before after seeing someone playing that he wanted to learn. It had taken Jie a full three months of begging and cajoling before his mother had thrown up her hands and said if he could get the money to buy one, she'd find the money for lessons and he could do it.

She had figured that would shut him up because _guzheng_ were by no stretch of the imagination cheap; she had not anticipated Jie being determined and Reno more than willing to go along for the ride for half of whatever they pulled in trolling for pedos. Reno hadn't been there, but Jie said when he pulled the money out for the _guzheng _six months later, she hadn't asked where it came from, just sighed; a week later, Reno didn't get to see Jie on Saturday afternoons anymore...which didn't stop him from going over to Jie's apartment Saturdays; the only days off Jie's mom took were Wednesdays, when she closed the restaurant and Saturdays because she'd always had to ferry Jie to classes that day when he was younger, and it became habit. So Saturdays, Reno usually showed up on her doorstep around lunchtime looking hungry, which got him fed _and_, with enough pestering, taught how to cook.

One of the plectrum came flying out at Reno, and bopped him on the temple and Reno stuck his tongue out at Jie. "_Hey! Don't take it out on me, just because you're the one making noise on that girly-ass thing._"

Jie gave Reno a look. "_I wouldn't make fun of anyone for their 'girly-ass things' when __**you're**__ the one getting called 'pretty' and who likes to __**cook**_"

"_Hey, cooking gets me __**food**__ and pretty gets me __**tail**__, so it ain't like it's a bad th--_oh shit,_"_ Reno finished when he saw the scandalized look on Jie's mom's face. "_I...um...that is...um...GEE, TIME TO GO HOME!" _he yelled and bolted for the door.

He decided he was just gonna ignore Jie's snickering at him. Better that way.

--

Reno hadn't really intended to go home--he had intended to hang out at Jie's house until Jie was done practicing and they either went somewhere or it got late enough that he crashed over there. But he went home, deciding he'd grab his PHS and then call Jie and they could go out and do something. When he got back, though, he was surprised to see his mother there and banging around in the kitchen area, looking for something to eat. Reno cursed under his breath, then sighed.

"Hey, Ma."

His mother turned and blinked. "Oh. Reno. Morning."

"More like, _evening_," Reno said dryly.

"Depends on your perspective," she said, just as dryly. She went back to looking for something to eat. "There has to be something here to eat that's not _weird_," she said, poking at the container of Wutai dried squid with an almost insanely cute drawing of Leviathan on it as a brand mascot.

Reno rolled his eyes. "There's some bread rolls in that cabinet over your head," he said. His mother tried to open the cabinet and get the bread, but the bag was just slightly out of her reach. Reno grinned a little to himself and went over and plucked it out for her without having to go on his toes and feeling pretty proud of being so much taller than her now.

"...You got your ear pierced!" Reno's mom said in surprise, staring at his ear since it was so close to her.

Reno was more than vaguely shocked that she had noticed. "Yeah. Got it done yesterday," he said, smiling a little warily as he handed her the bread. He didn't know how she was going to take it--not that it mattered to him how she did, he told himself, since it was done, but still.

His mother frowned. "But...you're not old enough to get one. You have to be fifteen!"

Something tightened in his stomach, made him feel like he'd been punched. "I _am_ fifteen. Yesterday was my _birthday_, Ma."

Her eyes widened slightly, and he could see her blinking quickly as she tried to figure out the date. "Oh. Oh. Oh. It was. I'm sorry, Reno. I don't know how I could have..."

"Save it," he said, cutting her off sharply, not wanting to hear whatever bullshit excuses she had this time.

His mother stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Her eyes raked down him slowly, from the top of his head to his feet and then back up again, almost as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "When did you get so much taller than me?"

"I've _been _taller than you for a good _two years_," he said in irritation.

"How did I miss...when did you grow up?" Reno's mother said, something almost broken in her voice. "When did you grow up?"

Reno had no idea how to answer that, he just started at his mother, feeling confused, dumbfounded, and..._angry_.

"It happens," he finally said, feeling his face contorting into something almost a snarl. "Maybe if you hadn't spent the last five years high or somethin', you'd've noticed I ain't ten no more."

His mother looked like he had slapped her, and a rush of guilt flooded him before he angrily pushed it back, feeling angry at even feeling guilt in the first place.

"Or maybe, you know, if you'd spent a little less time on your _back_, you'd've noticed," he added, narrowing his eyes and wanting to hurt her, wanting his words to make that look on his mother's face deepen, even as it warred with guilt and with _something_ that stabbed at him and _hurt_ rise up in him.

That was when he mother slapped him, her face cold and brittle.

Reno reeled back not from the blow itself, but the shock of it. "The truth hurts, don't it," he said, snarling. And before his mother could say anything, he spat out, "I'm outta here," and rushed out the door, hoping, just _hoping_, that someone would get in his way tonight.

--

He called Jie and they made plans to meet in thirty minutes at Wall Market. Reno was very much of the urge to hit something; Jie obliged. They blew a couple of hours at the nearby arcade where Reno shot things with fake guns all the while wishing both the guns and his targets were real, then, when it got to be late enough, went trolling for pervs in sector six, something Reno was almost disturbingly good at--_it's in the genes, yo_, a sick part of him thought in disgust--and Jie held the guy down while Reno beat the shit out of him.

After that, they went out for burgers. The guy, after all, had had quite a bit of gil on him, and it was best to put that to good use. Reno was still in the mood for punching things, and Jie was doing his best to talk Reno down with trivialities until the urge passed, and was doing a good job of it.

Until the flying ketchup packet.

--

"_Do you even __**know **__what time it is?! And aiya, what have you two done __**this**__ time_?!"

Reno and Jie both winced at the same time.

"_How does your mom __**do**__ that_?" Reno hissed under his breath. It was two AM and they were only just now sneaking into Jie's apartment, hoping to get to the bathroom and the first aid kit and then into Jie's room without Jie's mom noticing them. But no, somehow, she knew and had stormed out before they had even finished closing the front door.

"Psychic, man, gotta be. She _knows_ when we get in trouble," Jie hissed in Reno's ear, switching to English in the hope that, if she heard it, she wouldn't actually catch it. "I figured as late as it is, she'd be asleep!"

"_You're not answering my question!"_ Jie's mom screamed, looking absolutely livid.

"_Just some friendly words between us and some other boys_," Reno said, giving her a wide grin to try to diffuse Jie's mom before she went on a tirade.

Unfortunately, it was too late for that. _"'Friendly words'?!_" she yelled. "_The two of you look like you've been in a bar brawl!_"

"_It wasn't a bar! It was a fast food joint_! _And we won_! _And against five guys!_" Reno said gesturing madly.

"Sweet Shiva, you **idiot**!" Jie moaned just as his mother went "..._Five_?" and briefly paused her tirade. She blinked once, slowly, then blinked again as it all processed.

And then.

"_The two of you went up against...how can you both be so stupid? Do you have greens growing on your brains_?!" Jie's mom yelled in disgust. "_Aiya, it's like the older you two get the stupider you get!_"

"_They started it_!" Jie yelled after his mother as she stomped off to get the first aid kit from the bathroom. And that was the truth; the other guys had started it. Reno and Jie had been minding their own business, eating their burgers at a twenty-four hour burger joint and talking about what a fine, fine ass Alamyra Brentworth had, when someone from the group of dumbasses sitting next to them had thrown an open ketchup packet at them and told them to quit the chocobo jabber. And then started giving Jie shit for being Wutai, and, well, once "wonk" and "fag" had come out, between Jie's pride and Reno's urge to punch things until they bled, it had all gone downhill from there.

Jie's mom came back with the first-aid kit and all but slammed it on the living room table before she plopped herself down and opened it. It was a very well-stocked first-aid kit, full of bandages and antiseptic and pretty much everything you could think of. There was even a single potion in there, but both he and Jie _knew_ better than to touch it--potions were expensive, and the one time they had split one after a fight when they were eleven and twelve respectively, Jie's mother had all but skinned them _alive_ she had been so angry, screaming at them about how much potions costs, and they never touched a potion in there _again_.

"_SIT_!" Jie's mom ordered, and started cleaning them up, muttering in angry Wutai as she did about how stupid the two of them were, how they didn't think, and how they caused her nothing but gray hairs, and was Jie thinking at all about his hands, and how was he going to play like this, and if he was thinking about using that potion, he had better think again.

"_That's why once we got things evened up I just held the last guy down and Reno do the punching! It just took a while to get things even!_ " Jie yelled, and that turned into a yelp as his mother viciously rubbed antiseptic on a cut on his hand.

"_Because it was two of you fools up against five! And you were __**only**__ up against five guys and you got this beaten up?_" She made a disgusted noise. "_For this kind of mess, there ought to have at least been seven! And if you idiots had gone up against seven, you would have __**deserved**__ to get beaten for being that stupid!_

She finally finished up with Jie and turned to Reno, still looking ready to start hitting one of them, if not both, upside the head as soon as tend to their injuries. "_And you! Look at your poor face! You keep getting into fights and you're going to ruin that pretty face!_" Jie's mom said almost mournfully as she started tending to Reno.

Reno made a face, and only partially because of how much the antiseptic stung--Jie's mom never went easy on them, and it was worse when she was angry. "_So I'll ruin __**their**__ pretty fac--OW!_" Reno finished, raising his hands to try and defend his head from Jie's mom. "_I got enough bruises already, yo_!"

"_And apparently you need more, since sense still hasn't been knocked into your head yet! Aiya, if I had known you were going to be this much trouble, I'd have told Jie to put you back in the garbage heap he found you in!_" Jie's mom yelled in irritation as she batted away Reno's head and swatted him one, then went back to bandaging up the scrape on his face. "_Stop squirming! I swear, the two of you don't do anything but..._"

Suddenly, Jie's mom stopped moving and smiled. And both Jie and Reno went pale, looking at that smile.

"_I think you two need something to keep you busy,_" she said, that same strange, not-boding-well smile on her face. "_Running around with no responsibilities just leads to you two turning into delinquents._ _I think you two need to learn a little responsibility_," she finished. She kept that strange little smile on her face, not saying a word and obviously thinking, and finished bandaging the boys up, then got up and walked to the kitchen with that same little smile on her face.

"We are **so** fucked, aren't we?" Reno said, wide-eyed. He'd never seen Jie's mom act like that, and he knew one thing: this was _not _going to end well.

"Oh, yeah," Jie said, groaning. "We're fucked, **big time**."

--

"..._What do you mean, 'you have a job'_?" Jie said, jaw dropping open.

Jie's mom smiled smugly. "_Exactly what I just said. You two need something to do? And you won't try to study and learn so you can get out of the slums? Fine. You two now have __**jobs**_ _I'm short of staff. We need waiters and dishwashers. Congratulations,_" Jie's mom said, smiling her "don't even _think_ about arguing" smile. "_You start tomorrow morning._"

"_But tomorrow's Sunday_!" Reno whined, full of horror.

"_Ma, c'mon! It's Sunday! The one day I don't have school!_" Jie whined as well. Saturdays, as soon as she had found one, Jie was forced to go to a day school for Wutai children, and Reno constantly gave Jie crap for it, because that's what friends did. "_I'm not doing it!_"

Talking back, as they both knew and yet constantly forgot as the teenage years had set in, was never a good thing to do. Jie's mom's eyes damned near started glowing, and she swelled up again in her angry chocobo way, then opened her mouth and started yelling. "_Like you have any right to tell your mother no! You're going to help out now, since with grades like yours, you're going to end up a sweet sweeper!_

"_And you!_" she said, whirling her head to glare at Reno. "_As much as you eat, you ought to contribute something, too! If you're going to be a little red kitchen shadow, you can be useful and do it at the restaurant!_"

She glared at them more, and, yeah, Reno could swear her eyes were glowing and she was angry enough to summon Ifrit to fry their asses if they said no. He wouldn't put it past her, either.

He looked over at Jie, and could tell Jie was reading the warning signs as well as Reno was.

"_Yes, ma'am_," they said at the same time, and Jie's mom's lips curled up in a self-satisfied little smile.

"_Six AM_," she said, and the look on her face dared them to argue.

They knew better.

--

Six AM rolled around, and true to her word, there were loud, angry, and somehow groggy bangs at Jie's door, and Reno cracked open his eyes with a groan. He rubbed sleepily at his eyes, cursed several times, then dragged himself up out of his futon on the floor. Before, he and Jie had always just shared a bed, and that had lasted until the day they realized they were too _big_ to fit on the bed anymore, a realization that had come when Jie had one of his occasional nightmares or something and had thrashed around enough in his sleep to knock Reno _out_ of the bed. Reno ended up with a concussion, and for that Jie got a black eye, and a few days later, Jie's mother had shown up with a futon she got from one of her Yamatan friends, and told them to use _that_ when Reno slept over.

"_Jie, get up_," Reno muttered, poking at Jie's shoulder a few times until Jie flailed an arm at him and covered his head pathetically. Reno ignored it and poked him again until Jie tried to hit him, then set to folding up the futon, knowing if he didn't properly fold it and put it away like he was supposed to, he would get yelled at. Once it was folded and put away, he stumbled over to Jie's bed and poked Jie again. "_Get uuuuuuuup before your mom gets mad!_"

"_Five more minutes_," Jie mumbled.

"Get UP, dumbass!"

"Fuck you," Jie said, and the hand that flailed out from under the covers was giving him a decidedly obscene gesture, and that was coherent enough proof Jie was actually awake. Reno wasn't a morning person by any stretch, but when he was awake, he was _awake_, even if he didn't want to be, and at six AM, he most decidedly did _not _want be. He heard crashing and banging in the direction of the kitchen, and figured the bathroom was free, so headed in before Jie actually dragged himself out of bed and into the bathroom, then headed for the kitchen.

Jie's mom blinked at Reno a few times when he came in, and gestured vaguely in the direction of the ricecooker with a mumble that he supposed was supposed to be speech, but kind of missed the mark. Still, he had been there long enough that he knew the drill even without her groggy instructions, and started scooping the rice porridge, _xifan,_ that she had set the rice cooker to cook the night before into bowls for their breakfast, and Jie's mom ignored everything Reno was doing in favor for fumbling with the coffeemaker.

It amazed Reno, even after all these years, how the woman managed to prepare a meal without _once_ opening her eyes. But her eyes never seemed to actually crack open until she had had something with lots of caffeine in it. Green tea had slowly given way to coffee the longer she and Jie were in Midgar, and Reno wondered how long before Jie's mom finally just started eating the coffee beans for breakfast instead of waiting for them to brew. He wouldn't be surprised one day to find she had put ground coffee beans on her _xifan_ instead of her normal shredded vegetables or meat.

He knew better than to say that to her; the last thing he wanted to do was give her _ideas_.

Jie wasn't much better; when he finally dragged himself out of bed, he looked like he'd much prefer to hiss, scratch at something, and crawl back into bed than be upright. He managed to be marginally more coherent than his mother, but only because she had yet to let him drink coffee in the mornings, so he didn't have that addiction yet. When Jie finally got into the kitchen, he headed straight for a chair and sat there and waited for the food to appear before him, hunched over as much as he could be, holding onto the cup of green tea his mother gave him and looking very much like he wanted the entire world to die in a fiery ball of death. He glared balefully at Reno when Reno put the bowl of _xifan_ in front of him, then managed a grunt of acknowledgement and went back to trying to fall back asleep sitting upright.

Reno sat down himself, then--Jie's mom had just started frying the _you tiao_, and while it was always fun watching her cook, it was not so fun when she was frying things without opening her eyes and hadn't had coffee yet. Reno was all for testing his luck, but there was testing your luck and there was _stupid_, and Reno was no fool.

--

They got to the restaurant, and it was still Freya's-ass-o'clock as far as Reno was concerned. He had no idea why a place that didn't even open until ten needed them there at seven-thirty in the morning, and both he and Jie were scowling the whole train ride up to Sector Three where the restaurant was.

They found out pretty quickly--deliveries started coming in by eight, and they then found themselves unpacking food and stocking the fridges.

Jie's mom eyed them and frowned slightly. "_I need one of you to go out and sweep the floors out in the front and wipe down all the tables. And the lunch menus need to be set out. Plus, everything has to be prepped for lunch, before the cook gets here at nine._" She eyed them both. "_Jie, if you even tried to prep the food it'd be inedible, so you get to clean. I want the tables so clean I can my reflection in them_," she said, narrowing her eyes. "_Reno, you're on prep. And actually,"_ she said, looking thoughtful, "_I'll just keep you two where you are, then. Jie, once you've got the place cleaned up, I've got a waiter's uniform you can change into. Reno, you're on dishes._"

Jie and Reno groaned at the same time.

"_Ma, you're gonna make __**me**__ deal with people?!_"

"_Aww, c'mon, dishes?!_"

Jie's mom's eyes narrowed and glinted dangerously. "_Are you arguing with me?_"

Jie cursed under his breath and headed to the supply closet, grabbing and mop and cursing his way to the main area, and Reno scowled as Jie's mom pushed a pile of white clothes at him.

"_Changing room's over there_," she said, pointing over her shoulder with her thumb, an evil little smile on her face. "_No one ever said work was supposed to be __**fun**_."

--

"Oh, Ramuh blast it, someone get me out of this," Jie muttered when he got into the kitchen after a few hours, looking ready to start killing things. He slunk over to Reno and leaned against the countertop, doing the same eyetwitch thing his mom was so good at. "I'm gonna kill someone, I _am_."

Reno didn't even try to fight the urge to flick water at Jie. "Being out there _has_ to beat being in here, yo. It's hot, everyone's running, and I'm stuck here _washing dishes_. I think my fingers are gonna shrivel up and fall off."

Jie snorted. "There go your weekend plans, then," he said with a grin, and Reno tried to kick him, but Jie danced out of the way.

"Seriously, I am bored stupid, yo," Reno said, making a disgusted face. Reno never did well, having to sit in one place and do the same thing over and over again, and this was driving him absolutely nuts. Yeah, he got to flirt with the people in the back, but they were too busy now that it was in the dinner rush, and the novelty of the job had worn off after less than an hour.

"You're already stupid, so you should be used to it," Jie said, giving Reno a wicked grin.

"Fuck you, too."

"Serious, though. I'm about ready to kill something. Like the table of high-pitched, squealing girls that keep _pinching my ass._"

Reno stopped washing dishes and stared at Jie, dumbfounded. "Wait. You got girls pinching your ass, and this is a _bad_ thing?"

"It is when they won't stop! I'm not gonna be able to sit for a week at this rate!" Jie said, making a face. "I've had to smile so much I think my _face_ is gonna break. I would _much_ rather be back here," Jie said, lip curling up in disgust at the thought of going back out there.

"...Trade?" Reno said hopefully. "'Cause, for serious, if I gotta wash one more dish, I'm gonna, like, snap and start breakin' 'em. And then your ma's gonna kill me, and, man, I'm too pretty to die," Reno ended, fluttering his eyelashes dramatically at Jie.

Jie was nodding, ignoring Reno's last sentence and unbuttoning the frog collar button at his throat as he headed towards to changing room. "What the fuck are you waiting for? Carbuncle to come down and give you his blessing?!" he said over his shoulder. "Come ON before Ma comes out and notices!"

Reno blinked, pulled his hands out of the dirty water, and dried them on his shirt, and then followed Jie, because, yeah, this dishwashing thing blew, and _not_ in the good way.

--

As they hurriedly switched clothes--and Reno thought it really sucked that Jie was still bigger than him--Jie filled him in on which tables were his and who had ordered what, thrusting his notepad and pencil at him.

"_What the fuck, man_," Reno said, making a face. "_You had to write in wuzi, didn't you._"

Jie grinned apologetically. "_Yeah, well, you ought to learn how to read one of these days, you illiterate_."

"_And proud of it_," Reno said, sticking out his tongue. He had wanted to learn until he saw how much work it was, and that had killed that--he could talk, so what'd he need to read for, he figured. Jie took the notepad and quickly scribbled the _bopomofo_ over the characters.

"_There, that'll help_," he said. "_Now, we need to book before Ma comes out of her office and kills us_."

"_Better forgiveness than permission, yo,_" Reno said with a grin, and then ran out.

--

Oh, yeah, Reno thought to himself. Out here was waaaaaay better than in the back in the kitchen. As much as Reno liked food, he liked attention a _whole_ lot more.

Jie, he decided, as he gave the table full of girls a grin and got giggles and appreciative looks back, really was _out of his mind_.

--

Jie's mom did get mad, but she had to admit, as much as she didn't want to, Reno made a much better waiter than a dishwasher, and if Jie had been forced to be out there for much longer he very well might had dumped a plate of food on someone by "accident." So she didn't scream too badly, just rubbed her temples and said she'd find a uniform that fit Reno a little better.

And so things were settled, and, for better or worse Jie and Reno found themselves gainfully employed several days a week. Reno kind of liked getting that steady paycheck, but not nearly as much as he liked flirting and being flirted with and the sheer number of phone numbers--from men and women--he was scoring. And another perk of being a waiter, aside from the phone numbers and flirting, was the fact that Reno got to interact with a lot of people, and he was vaguely surprised to learn that people _just_ talked to him--it didn't take much at all to get people all but babbling their life stories to him, seemed like.

Although to be honest, most of the times it was a big, screaming, pain in his ass--especially the "no hitting the customers" thing, but there were downsides to any job. He got a bank account and started depositing the money from the restaurant job straight into that, figuring it'd be good to have some saved, because as soon as he hit sixteen, he was moving out and never putting up with his mother again. Lately, she had been getting worse, somehow, and some days, just being around her made him want to be sick.

To get away and forget she had ever existed, he needed some money put away, and while he didn't make much, he felt good, making steps towards getting out. He had a good year to go, and that was plenty of time.

So the job was good in that it was steady, but it didn't pay much. And so he and Jie's main source of income was _still _beating the crap out of people who started shit with them and taking their wallets. It was a hell of a lot easier, after all.

--

The war was going badly.

It didn't really take a genius to know that; it was obvious. Even though the news didn't report just how badly things were going, the fact that it had dragged on so many years so far with no end in sight with so many being conscripted and never coming back, every one knew.

And with the war going badly, with more and more people coming back in body bags, the feeling of "us vs. them," one that had long been there against Wutai, stretching back to the first Wutai invasion centuries ago, intensified. There was a lot of anger and blame. And when all of that was there, the urge to scapegoat.

That was something Reno and Jie knew well, even if they never really thought about the psychology behind. They knew it with every hissed "Fuckin' wonk!" that was hurled at Jie and every asshole who tried to fight the Wutai war at home by jumping Jie.

Just as the soldiers in Wutai found the fighting tough going, so did anyone dumb enough to go after Jie. In fact, anyone who went after Jie usually found their asses handed to them, and whatever money had been in their wallet no longer there.

Pretty much, though, people left Jie alone at school, jackasses like Sanith and his crew who just never learned aside. And when he and Reno were out, only people bruising for a fight really started shit. Reno had to admit, he was mighty impressed with how Jie had his mother's glare down pretty good and wielded it like a pro. And, if he thought about it, he would have admitted there was something else behind that glare, something a lot more dangerous and barely-contained than Jie's mom ever could have managed, and anyone who wasn't a dumbass looking for a fight tended to back down from that.

The two of them, Jie and Reno, never really much thought about if Jie's mother ever had any problems. After all, to them, she seemed invincible, and who would want to tangle with her? So it never even occurred to them that she would be having problems as well.

Never, that is, until the day she came home far later than usual, hair wild, nose swollen and bleeding, one eye blackened and lip split, clothes dirty with street filth and footprints, clutching her ribs tightly and _shaking_.

Jie's mom's eyes had gone wide when she saw both Jie and Reno in the living room playing video games with a half-eaten box of pizza between them when she opened the door, and she flinched at the sight of them. And before she could even say anything, they had dropped the controllers, and Jie was on his feet.

"_Ma_!" Jie yelled, face drained almost completely of blood the first instant he saw his mother's face. "_Oh, shit, are you OK?! What happened_?!" he yelled, running over to her and trying to help her. She winced when he touched her side and Jie blanched even more.

Reno had seen this kind of thing, more often than he would ever liked, but he still felt glued to the spot until his sense kicked in. Potion, she needed that potion--now was the emergency, after all, and he sprinted to the bathroom for the first aid kit. As badly beaten as she looked, the potion might not cut it--she might need a high or even a mega, so he brought the whole kit, figuring the potion would take care of the worst of it--knit her ribs and broken nose, if nothing else, and the bandages would do the rest.

By the time he got back, Jie had his mom sitting, and Reno skidded to his knees at the sofa, opening the first aid kit and pulling out the potion, and trying to make his hands stop _shaking_.

"_Here, drink this. It'll help,"_ he said stupidly, and she took it with hands that were shaking far more than Reno's, her hands shaking so much Jie took it from her and opened it, almost as afraid she would drop it, and held her hands steady as she drank, and there was so much wrong with the whole scene that Reno couldn't even begin to wrap his brain around it.

Only when she had finished and with a faint flash of green did the worst heal and she could draw a deep breath did the horrified look on Jie's face fade, replaced, as his mother leaned against him tiredly, with an ugly look Reno had only seen once before and hoped not to ever see again.

"_Who did this?_" Jie said, his voice a deathly calm that made the little hairs on the back of Reno's neck stand up.

Jie's mom shrugged, still shaking as she clutched the empty potion bottle tightly between her hands. "_I don't know who they were. There were three of them. They started yelling at me when I was leaving the station, but I ignored them. Then they were following me._" She closed her eyes and tried for what was supposed to be a deep, steadying breath, but ended up shaking and coming out hitched. "_But they only hit and kicked me. I was lucky_," she said, and her voice sounded so _scared. _"_I was lucky,_" she repeated, voice a little steadier._ "And I'm all right now,_" she said, shaking her head and biting her lip, and never had Reno thought of Jie's mom as _little_ or _breakable_ before, but he did now, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it, he didn't like how much it scared him or how much it reminded him in bad ways of the times his own mom had come home broken like that only _worse_ because people didn't just _hit_ the junkie whore and he couldn't never do _nothing_, and this wasn't fair and it wasn't right, and by all the gods, somebody was gonna _bleed_ for this, and bleed a _lot_.

--

It hadn't been easy to go to sleep, but somehow he'd managed it. But it didn't feel like he'd been asleep for long before Reno woke up to the sounds of Jie mumbling something entirely too young-sounding and panicked, writhing and thrashing in his sleep. Reno groaned to himself, dragging himself unwillingly completely out of sleep and to his feet and then over to Jie.

"_Jie. Jie! Wake up!_" Reno hissed, shaking Jie hard to try and wake him up. Jie was having a nightmare, that much was obvious. Jie used to have them more when he was younger, but they had faded as he'd gotten older. Or seemed to; it was as if when they came back to him now they were stronger in some ways, maybe because Jie himself was physically bigger and stronger--the same thrashing a ten-year-old did became a lot more noticeable and dangerous when it was done by someone just shy of their sixteenth birthday.

Reno to this day had no idea what Jie's nightmares were about; Jie never told him and he never asked. Jie was always so shaken by them that Reno left it alone. Whatever it was, he figured it was something pretty bad; Jie always yelled out the same things:

_Stop._

_Please, don't.  
Mama._

_I'll kill you._

_Daddy._

Whatever it was, Reno figured if it was something Jie wanted to talk to him about, he'd tell him. Reno knew well enough about not wanting to tell people things; he had things of his own he didn't want to talk about to no-one, neither, so he never pressed.

Jie jerked awake, eyes wide and breathing hard. He blinked a few times, as if trying to orient himself, and sat up shaking his head. "_Another nightmare, hunh_?" he said finally, shutting his eyes as he wrapped his arms around his knees.

"_Looked like_," Reno said with a lopsided grin. "_You all right?_"

"No," Jie said flatly in English. "I'm not. If I was all right, I wouldn't be sitting here fucking shaking at Freya's ass o'clock. I'd still be **asleep**."

"_Yeah, well, point_," Reno said wryly, sitting down on the bed next to Jie. "_So what gives. You hadn't had a nightmare like that in months, yo._ "

Reno was pretty damned sure the whole mess with Jie's mom had set this nightmare off. After all, in the normal litany of Jie's nightmarespeak, there had been a new verse this time:

_Don't hurt my Mama._

Jie's face suddenly grew pained, an expression that seemed very young coming across his face. "_I'm supposed to protect her_," he said. "_I'm the only one she has to watch out for her and protect her. What kind of son am I?"_

Reno stared at him, feeling like Jie had said something incomprehensible. "_What do you mean, what kind of son are you? It's not like you have some magic psychic ability and __**knew**__ some assholes were going to attack her!"_

Jie's jaw tightened. "_I knew things were dangerous. I shouldn't have let Ma come home that late at night by herself. I should have known better._"

Reno still felt like Jie was making no sense at all. "_You're insane. There wasn't nothing you could have done._"

Jie made a dismissive noise, and his jaw tensed. _"Whatever. It's not happening again,"_ he finally said.

"_So what are we gonna do?"_ Reno said, and the look Jie gave him was of a surprised kind of relief.

"_We?"_

"_I dunno about you, but __**I**__ plan to seriously jack up whoever did this,"_ Reno said, feeling a slightly manic grin cross his face.

Jie's answer was a grin as cold as Reno's was manic. "_By the time we're done? 'Jack up' won't even begin to cover it,"_ he said, and Reno was very, very glad that they were both on the same page.

--

And after that, Reno and Jie found themselves with a second job--namely, making sure Jie's mom made it to work and home in one piece. The war was going badly, and times like that, people starting taking it out on the closest scapegoat they could find, and a pretty woman from Wutai barely in her thirties made an easy target. She'd tried to argue, briefly, and then gave up, and it made both Reno and Jie sick to see the relief in her eyes that she tried to hide.

Which lead to a third job on top of that--finding out who exactly had thought attacking Auntie Qian had been a good idea.

Reno was vaguely surprised to learn how easy it was to find out. People really _did_ just open right on up and tell him things.

Especially when he had a broken pipe in his hands and no disinclination to use it.

It was amazing how much information a few good hits could produce, really, and once he had a few names and was able to match them up with faces, Reno reported to Jie exactly what he had learned, and then it was time to teach a couple assholes a very, very valuable life lesson.

"_Those the punks_?" Jie said, a snarl on his face at the way Reno went tense and used his cue stick to point out three guys who had just come into the pool hall then gave Jie a sharp nod. Reno had heard that the three guys--Xarith Jameson, Tiames Battle, and Orin Firewind--came here pretty regularly on Friday nights, and lo and behold. The third Friday of waiting had panned out at last.

"_Yup_," Reno said, getting a dark smile on own his face. "_The ones what thought it'd be a good idea to mess with Auntie_."

--

Reno really liked having a broken pool cue. He found it fit into his hand very well, and it was easy, with a simple flick of the wrist, to seriously jack someone up. It also gave him a reach advantage--with a broken pool cue, you didn't have to get as close in hand to hand, because it tended to change things from "hand-to-hand" to "stick-to-face," and damned if there wasn't something satisfying in the sound of bones breaking. Still, he had to admit, he much preferred a good length of pipe--those didn't break as easily as wood did.

Still, it did the job pretty well. Between him, Jie, the broken pool cues, and the really neat "pool balls in sock" thing Jie had improvised, he and Jie had made sure that the lesson they had just taught the three bleeding and various stages of "not conscious" assholes at their feet stuck.

Reno kicked one of the guys in the ribs for good measure, just to make sure. And man, if it wasn't satisfying to feel something give, in that "something just broke" kind of way.

--

Auntie Qian, oddly enough, was not as proud of them as they had expected her to be.

"_DIDN'T I TELL YOU NOT TO GET INTO ANY MORE FIGHTS?!_" Jie's mom yelled, looking livid.

"Damn it, _Ma, quit smacking my head like I'm a kid already! I'm almost sixteen_!" Jie said, his voice in a whine that almost undermined what he was saying. Jie's mom stopped mid-smack, looking slightly surprised, and she blinked once. Then blinked again, then slowly lowered her hand.

And that was when Jie's mom _smiled_.

"...Oh, **shit**," Reno said under his breath, feeling his face going pale.

It really was _never_ a good sign when she started smiling like that.

"_You're right. You __**are**__ getting too big for me to keep hitting you like this._"

She kept that weird little smile, and got up and left the room.

"Ohhh, shit, we are **fucked**," Jie said, eyes huge. "Oh, shit, we are **so**, **so **fucked," he said, his voice full of terror and dread.

"No, **you're** fucked. **I'm** going home," Reno said, deciding now was the time to make a break for it and jumping up.

"Oh, fuck that! _Asshole, we're in this together! If I can't run away, neither can you!"_ Jie yelled, tackling Reno before he could go. They were still scruffling when Jie's mom walked back in, and only stopped when she hit them both.

_Hard_.

They broke apart, rubbing their heads, and Jie's mom sat kneeling at the low living room table and began calmly laying things out on it.

"..._You can't be serious,_" Jie said, staring open-mouthed at his mother pulling supplies of some sort--paper, brushes, some kind of black block, and other things Reno couldn't identify, out of a box.

"_I think learning to sit still and not run around like fools is exactly what you need,_" she said, still smiling. She carefully smoothed out one of the Wutai-only menus from the restaurant, laying it on the table in front of them. "_You little hotheads need to learn how to be calm. And you need to do me some good, since right now you contribute nothing but more gray hairs for me. You are going to copy these menus. By hand. One mistake, and you have to start over,_" she said, narrowing her eyes. _"Jie Guang, get started making the ink. As for you, you illiterate little hooligan,_" she said, turning to glare at Reno, _"I am going to teach you how to write. Once you have the basics down, menus for you, too."_

--

It was quickly turning into the worst day of Reno's life. It seemed like every few seconds, he was getting smacked and scolding in harsh, angry, irritated Wutai by Jie's mom:

"_BACK STRAIGHT!"_

"_No slouching! And hold the brush right! If it slips, you do it all over again!"_

_"That's not the right stroke order! There are rules; you can't just swipe the brush whichever way you want! Write that one out five times until you get it right and remember!"_

_"Aiya, what IS that?! Your wuzi look like a Levrikon's foot! Your strokes are still wrong and what on earth is that supposed to be there, because it's certainly not any wuzi I've ever seen! Do it again! And stop slouching!"_

Three hours later, legs all but screaming from having had to have sat kneeling the whole time and his writing arm and shoulder all but ready to fall off, Jie's mom declared they had done enough, and Reno had never in his life been so glad to be able to leave and go _home_.

His mom might have been a strung-out potent junkie, but at least she wasn't _insane_.

--

The next day when Reno and Jie showed up at the restaurant to work, Jie's mom took one look at them under the florescent lights--Reno had a black eye and Jie's lip was split--got the eye-twitch look, and hurried them into the back.

"Here. Both of you, drink one," she said, looking pained as she handed them potions from the ones she had in the restaurant's kitchen.

"Aw, gee, thanks!" Reno said with a grin, taking his and swallowing it gratefully, feeling the cuts and bruises from the night before healing instantly.

"Why you thank me?" Jie's mom said, eyes narrowed. "You look like that, you scare customers!

"And it come out your pay," she finished, raising an eyebrow and daring him to say something.

"_I love you, too, Auntie Qian_," Reno said with a grin, and Jie snickered as the corners of his mom's lips quirked up, even though it was obvious she was fighting it.

--

It always gave Reno a little chuckle, when someone from Wutai realized he could speak without any problems. Usually, if anyone Wutai came in, they took one look at his face and hair and assumed he wouldn't speak a word. It usually came out, though, as soon as he repeated orders back, since there was no mistaking someone who actually knew how it was all supposed to be pronounced, and sometimes saying the names in Wutai caused him to switch languages without realizing it and the next few words would be in Wutai. The only time he really came out and spoke was if someone obviously was stymied by English or if they were talking about him in front of him.

That was the best, he had to admit. It was great, that moment of "Oh _shit, _he understood me!" recognition. It tended to make any bad day better.

Reno had the feeling he was about to have one of those moments.

"How many in your party?" he said, plastering a smile on his face even as one of the two men in business suits, both about fifteen or twenty years older than him by the looks of things, gave Reno a once-over that just screamed "distaste."

"_Looks like we're stuck with the ghost,_" the other one said, giving the other a long-suffering look. "_Everyone else is Wutai, though. Just our luck, eh?_"

"_I'm not sure about ghosts,_" Reno said, the fake smile melting into one of satisfaction as the man blanched, _"since last I checked I was still breathing. How many in your party?_"

The other man laughed. "_He's got you there, Tsai."_

The idiot guy, Tsai, ignored him. _"You speak Wutai_?"

"_Last I checked,_" Reno said, enjoying the man's poleaxed expression. The other man started to turn red, but Reno just laughed it off--he was used to this, after all, and the look on the man's face had pretty much made up for it.

Well, almost. Reno was still going to spit in his food. That was a given.

"_Just us two,_" the other man said, and followed Reno, still chuckling at Tsai, as they went.

Reno lead them over to a free table, and gave them a grin as he asked if they wanted English or Wutai menus. The other man, not-Tsai, laughed a little and said Wutai, and things seemed to go pretty smoothly. He left them to their menus, noting to himself that it was one Jie had had to copy out last time they'd gotten into a fight, and went about checking on his other customers, coming back after he'd dropped off one table's order, winked at a table of people, and taken a dessert order.

"_Ready to order?_" he asked, and when they nodded, pulled out his note pad. They ordered, and he wryly noted to himself that he knew how to actually write half their order in wuzi after the last _three_ times they'd been forced to copy menus, and he was taking their menus with the other guy, not-Tsai, sucked in a sudden, surprised breath.

Reno looked over to whatever not-Tsai was looking, a little worried, then chuckled. "_Yeah, she's pretty, isn't she?_" Reno said, grinning cheekily at not-Tsai's doing a double take when he saw Jie's mom, coming out briefly from the back to handle some kind of problem--it looked like someone had made a complaint of some sort, and Jie's mom was having to make apologies. Reno winced to himself, thinking poor Ayaka, the Yamatan waitress standing next to her and clutching her tray nervously, was probably going to get royally chewed out at the end of the day. Reno had once seen Jie's mom reduce a waitress to _tears_, and then chew the person out for crying.

He really was surprised that there wasn't a higher turnover rate.

"_What? Ah...yes. Yes, she is. Who is she?_" the man said, still staring. He was staring so much Tsai was looking at him like he was crazy.

"_The big boss. She owns this place._"

"_What's her name?_"

"_Qian. Qian Xiao Zhen_. _But I gotta warn you,_" Reno said, biting back a grin, "_that she's got a pretty overprotective guy in her life."_

_"Oh?"_ not-Tsai said, looking briefly at Reno, raising an eyebrow.

Reno gestured over his shoulder with his thumb at Jie, who had been roped into waiting tables because two people were out sick with something nasty that had half the city almost puking its guts out. Reno grinned slightly, recognizing even from there Jie's "I will not kill this person because it would be beneath me" expression.

"_Who's that?"_ the man said, looking slightly shocked.

_"Her son, Jie"_ Reno said, grinning as he waited for the guy to double take. Jie's mom didn't look old enough to have a teenaged son, not to anyone who lived above Plate. In the slums, though, a woman her age having a teenage son, or even being a grandmother, wasn't really that surprising down there. In fact, becoming a grandmother seemed to be her biggest fear; she'd made it perfectly clear to Jie, as soon as he turned fifteen--the age she was when she'd been married off--that if he showed up with any little "oops", she would have his hide. And that went for Reno as well.

The man properly did a double take, but there was something odd about the way he stared at Jie that made Reno frown slightly, not knowing what was up with the man's slightly startled, "_Jie_?" and then suddenly looking like about fifty bajillion wheels in his head had started spinning madly. He didn't really have much time to think about it, because before he could started to really wonder, the man's phone rang.

"_Yes? This is Shi_," the man said, and Reno bowed a polite exit and headed off to take their orders to the kitchen and see about other customers, and a few minutes later, in the dinnertime rush, promptly forgot all about the man and his slightly odd reaction, and after they left, he more or less completely forgot about the two customers themselves, who did nothing more interesting than talk about shipments and geography, something so boring Reno completely tuned them out, and then didn't give them another thought.

--

Aside from the thing at lunch, it had been a rather uneventful day at school for the two of them. Since it was Wednesday, the restaurant was closed, and both Reno and Jie were looking forward to a day off, since Jie's mom had been working them stupid, saying she was hoping they'd be too tired to cause problems.

That hadn't worked, really, as lunch today had proven, but hey. She tried. She did. But it was hardly _their_ fault Sanith was an assmunch.

Reno and Jie gotten into Jie's apartment just in time to hear Jie's mom hanging up the phone. And then, thundering from the kitchen:

"_JIE GUANG! LEI NUO_!"

They looked at each other and they both knew what was coming: three hours, or more, of writing calligraphy. Reno was still stuck doing menus and was told he would be until they no longer looked like a chocobo had scribbled them out, but Jie's mom had switched Jie over to _classical poetry_.

"..._Window_?" Reno said desperately.

"_Window_," Jie said, agreeing with even a second thought, and the two of them dove for the window and jumped out.

It was a four-story jump, but the two of them had long since learned how to use the assorted ledges and windows _down _to actually make it to the bottom in one piece, and at this point, the "one piece" thing really wasn't even that important. As soon as they reached the bottom, they took off running.

They finally stopped about five blocks away. "_How long before she cools off?_" Reno said, panting as he leaned against a wall.

"_Not a clue. Maybe an hour?_" Jie said, panting almost as hard as Reno.

"_Let's shoot for two_," Reno said, glancing back where they had run, some part of him terrified Jie's mom had followed them.

"_Works for me_," Jie said. He grinned, looking stupidly proud of himself for having escaped, and Reno had to admit, he felt pretty proud of himself, too. "Arcade?"

"Arcade," Reno said, and grinned back, and they headed out to the arcade, not even noticing that they were being watched.

--

They went to the arcade and ended up spending three hours there before heading back, figuring by then Jie's mom had probably cooled off and it was safe. Reno tried to sneak off and go home, because hey, that way was safe for _him_, but Jie had given him that look, the "I didn't know you wanted me to rip out your spine and beat you with it" look, and Reno decided he liked having his spine where it was. They headed back to Jie's apartment for food, and Jie grabbed the front door and turned the knob.

Nothing happened. He made a confused face, and tried to turn the knob again. And again, banging his shoulder against the door when it didn't budge.

"..._the door's locked_!" Jie said, sounding like he was in shock. "_She...Ma locked us out._"

"Yes, door locked!" Jie's mom yelled, opening the door but not unhooking the chain on it. "You crazy fools go out window, you come back in window!" she fumed, and slammed the door shut, turning the lock firmly.

"..._She can't be serious,_" Reno said, jaw hanging open. "_There's no way she could_..._"_

Jie just stared at him, giving Reno a "think about who this _is_, dumbass" look.

"_Your ma is completely insane. You know that, yeah_?" Reno said, still looking dumbfounded.

"_Insane and then some_," Jie said, shaking his head. "_C'mon, let's go figure out a way to climb _up_ a wall_."


	9. Roadtrip

**Title:** The Things You Never Knew About People - Roadtrip**  
Status: **9/12 (plus two epilogues)  
**Rating:** PG**  
****Summary:** _Oh, I just told them to fuck their moms._**  
A/N:** Look at me; I'm making up shit on the Wutai continent! XD Also, "Visgradian (Standard)" is English. I'm going to go back and edit the earlier chapters later (on lj and ij; it's too much of a hassle here, sorry!), but as I'm doing more with Gaia, I'm filling in pieces of things, like the way I've shamelessly made up stuff on Wutai. I've named the continents on Gaia, and Visgrad is the continent that Midgar is on. It comes from a mix of "Asgard" and "Visgrid," the plain where the battle before Ragnorak occurs. :D I won't touch much on it in this fic, but it has and will show up in other series and stories that I'm working on now--internal consistency FTW.

As for Wutai, here's what I made up for this fic, and it's also internal canon for all my fic. :D There are five provinces in Wutai, thus the 'Wu' in 'Wutai'--it's 'five' in Chinese (and I spent a LOT of time on the Chinese wiki, yo). The 'wu' in 'wuzi', however, is a different 'wu' character, and it's like 'hanzi', where the 'han' refers to the Han Chinese. The 'wu' refers to the Wu people. Also, the 'wu' for the Wu clan is a different character. Don't think about it too hard. XD;; But the big thing for this fic is the locations. I _researched_, yo. I'm not gonna spill out everything, but any of y'all interested, you can either wait for the Author's Notes Ultimania (lj/ij only; sorry ) on names, which will come out when chapter 10 is done...or do a search on Diyu and Taohuayuan (Táohūayuán). :D

Oh, and I'd advise going back and reading chapter 7, Serious, just because this takes off _right_ where Chapter 7 ended.

_...oh, god, now I have to write chapter ten. D:_

Chapter 9 - Roadtrip

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_," Reno said over and over again, sitting on the floor and pressing his hands against his head, ignoring the gun. "_Fuck_."

"Reno?" Rude said, for the first time that evening _truly_ feeling disturbed. He had never seen Reno react like this; never seen Reno in any way unnerved by whatever violence was done in the ShinRa name. Reno had never flinched from doing anything, no matter how dirty the job. But now Reno was obviously off-balance and unnerved and, more frightening in its way, _angry_. Whatever this was, it was pure unbridled rage, and Rude had never _once_ seen Reno like this. Professionalism, and Reno had it for all he seemed on the surface not to, had no part of this, whatever _this_ was.

Pieces were starting to come together in Rude's mind, but there weren't enough to make things clear, only enough to make things more frustrating because there were so many pieces _missing_, and the pieces he had were speculation and nothing more.

Reno continued on his cursing rampage, oblivious to everything but his rage. "The Wu clan. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" he yelled, snarling. "I thought those fucks got run the fuck outta Midgar! Especially after--FUCK!"

He stood up and began pacing, completely ignoring the dead man, snarling more obscenities that were variations on the theme of "Fuck." After a few minutes, Reno whirled, fired more shots at the dead man until his gun cartridge was empty and only hollow clicks came out before he finally stopped, chest heaving raggedly. Then he shut his eyes, hard, and seemed to force himself to take a deep breath, and he didn't open his eyes until his face had run through a gamut of contortions, rage and fury and so many other things Rude couldn't identify before Reno seemed to pull himself relatively together, still with a fine tremor of rage vibrating beneath the surface. He opened his eyes and turned to Elena, who had been staring at Reno with wide eyes, looking as stunned as Rude felt. "Take care of that," he said, gesturing at Shi's body, then shoved his gun in his holster and practically threw himself out the door, pulling out his PHS as he went.

Rude shot Elena an apologetic look, and she smiled weakly, nodding once, then squared her jaw and turned to the corpse leaking blood and brain matter on the floor. Rude took this for what it was, express permission to go and assurances that she could, in fact, handle this, and he headed out the door after Reno.

Reno hadn't gotten far and was standing impatiently at the elevator, talking to someone on his PHS. "Get me every," Reno said, voice tight and sharp, "_fuckin' _scrap of info, I don't care how small or insignificant it is, what the _fuck_ language it is in, fuckin' Wutai, Visgradian, Mideelian, whatever the fuck-ese, that we have on both the Wu and Li clans in Wutai. An' I want it in under thirty minutes. If it ain't on my _fuckin'_ desk in thirty _fuckin'_ minutes, _you_ personally, whoever the _fuck_ you are, are gonna _wish_ your daddy had pulled out!" he finished, and slammed the phone shut, still breathing hard.

"Don't say nothin', man," Reno said, his eyes seeming like they were glowing, this time grey, from the grey coloring of everything around them, in Reno's pale face.

Rude nodded once, and turned to wait for the elevator. Once the elevator got there, they went in, and Rude faced the doors impassively, giving Reno space to turn and beat his fists angrily against the side, flinging himself in his rage from one side of the elevator to the other as it rose to the top levels, remaining calm as Reno raged.

Reno practically flung himself out of the elevator, then stopped short. "What the--" he began in confusion, frowning slightly. "What the fuck, man, this ain't our floor!"

"We need to talk to Tseng," Rude said, voice calm, watching as, on some level, Reno seemed to latch onto that one bit of normalcy. Rude had no idea what had set Reno off so badly, but it was obvious that the man needed a way to calm himself down. And no matter what was said about him, he had always been able to focus when it came down to, as he would put it, "getting shit done."

Now was a time to "get shit done," and Reno having it presented as such before him would hopefully give him the focus to calm down.

Later, however, would be a whole other story. But by then, there would be some distance.

--

As Rude had hoped, Reno did calm down once they were in front of Tseng, but not nearly enough for it to not be noticeable to anyone with eyes. Reno gave a quick report to Tseng, with Rude jumping in from time to time. Rude suspected very seriously that Reno was not reporting everything, but he had no way to be sure, and knew better than to voice his doubts _now_.

The more he heard, the more Tseng seemed to not like what he was hearing, especially when Reno first said "the Wu clan," and Tseng finally shook his head. "You're sure this isn't just misinformation?" he asked, frowning slightly.

Reno shook his head. "No, man, not a chance. That guy, Shi, he's Wu clan. _Trust me_, he's Wu," Reno said, and Rude was almost shocked to see how Reno's lip curled up, in a mix of disgust and something else, the man's eyes unfocusing for a bare instant as he seemed to be reacting to something he was thinking, or something he was remembering. Something ghosted behind Reno's pale eyes before Reno shuttered it away, something that caused a bad feeling to begin to touch the bottom of Rude's stomach.

"How do you know?" Tseng said, voice and face expressionless in the way that meant he was thinking and, more importantly, _considering_. In that moment, Rude was very sure that Tseng had more than a few extra pieces to this whole mess than Rude did, but not enough, not nearly enough, to put everything together.

Reno's eyes narrowed. "I _know_." The look he gave Tseng was hard and burning, and, above all else, steady in its rage.

Tseng looked at Reno sharply. "Are you going to be able to complete this case, Reno?"

Reno stared at him, taken aback. "What?"

Tseng met Reno's surprised gaze blandly. "Exactly what I said. Are you going to be able to complete this case?" Tseng said, his voice as cool and detached as ever, but there was a twinge of _something__, _and Rude wished someone would fill him in on what in Hel's realm was going on.

Reno's jaw clinched so tightly that it looked like it had to be painful. "Don't pull me offa this, not now, not after all the legwork I put into this."

"Legwork is not the concern; conflict of interest _is_. I know you've had some dealings with the Wu clan--I _do_, after all, remember why you were recruited and what you were doing at the time--but I don't know the particulars," Tseng said. "Care to enlighten me as to just what relation you have to them?"

"_No_," Reno said, the word cold and sharp, and Tseng looked taken aback, eyes going wide for a brief moment at the sheer shock of being given so firmly and blunt a denial. "But I do wanna find out what the hell they are doing back in Midgar and make sure the fuckers get out and don't never come back," he finished, and something in his pale eyes burned fever-bright in a way Rude had never seen before.

"Very well," Tseng said slowly. "I want a write-up about what happened today, as well as a report on everything that has occurred up until now, and I want it within the next two hours, before I leave out on my mission."

"Understood," Reno said, and turned on his heel, heading out the door without a look back.

"Rude," Tseng said softly, when Reno was out the door, before Rude could follow. "Whatever this is, Reno is close to it. I want you to keep an eye on him and report back to me immediately if something starts with him."

"Sir?" Rude said, allowing that one word to show all the questions in his mind about what he had just seen and heard. Then he paused, and opened his mouth to speak before Tseng wearily could. "Never mind. I will. Excuse me," he said, and with a slight, crisp bow, left the room.

An explanation for whatever the hell all of that was, he decided, should come from Reno. And somehow, Rude would get it. It just might take a bit of time, but he was a patient man, and he understood the value of timing.

--

It wasn't often that Rude was surprised when he came into the office he and Reno shared. On occasion, yes, he opened the door to find surprising things, things such as when he had come in to find Reno struggling with learning to read Wutai that first day, and the time he had come in to find Reno curled up asleep with his jacket over him like a blanket, paperwork trailing from a limp hand. Things like that were by their very nature and rarity surprising.

But not nearly so surprising as walking in, sadly an hour and a half late thanks to an accident that had occurred on his route to work, to find Reno, hair dyed Wutai black and one eye dark brown, putting a brown contact lens into his still pale-colored left eye, with Elena frowning next to him and trying to match mascara with Reno's newly dyed hair.

"Partner?" Rude said, suddenly struck by the fact that Reno's tattoos were _gone_. Then he noticed the containers of what he realized had to be makeup on the desk. Which explained why Reno, easily one of the palest people Rude had met in his life, was decidedly not so pale anymore.

"'Bout time you showed up. What the fuck, man, I ain't never supposed to be here before you."

There was a certain something surreal about him being chewed out by Reno for being late. "There was ten-car pile-up on the highway," he said, frowning.

Reno made a dismissive noise, blinking to settle the contact lens into place. "Whatever."

"This color will probably look the most natural and be able to cover your own eyelash color," Elena said, finally picking one. "But are you sure you want to use foundation instead of just using a chemical tanner? A chemical tanner would be safer, since you wouldn't have to worry about it coming off or someone looking too closely."

Reno gave Elena a look. "_Safer_?! If you think I'm lettin' anythin' that comes out of a ShinRa lab near my _face_, you must be out of your mind. I'd prolly end up, like, glowing or somethin'," he said, shuddering.

"...You have a point," Elena said, blinking. "Over the counter stuff? But then, that might turn you orange."

"...And here I thought that blonde meant you were dumb."

Before Elena could start spluttering with anger, Rude finally decided to ask just what was going on.

"Oh, yeah. That. We gotta go to Wutai, yo," Reno said, raising a dyed eyebrow, then opening the mascara and leaning down in front of a mirror on his desk. "Elena, WTF, how do girls do this?" he ended, looking up at her with a "I am helpless, do it for me!" look on his face.

And Elena fell for it hook, line, and sinker. "By not trying to stab themselves in the eye," she said, looking like she was amazed by Reno's stupidity, and she took the mascara brush from him and started explaining the esoterica of makeup to the man.

"Wutai, fine. It won't be the first time. But why are you...?" Rude began, and then wasn't quite sure how to finish it.

"Lookin' like one of the troops happy 'gifts' to Wutai?" Reno ended, looking up but not daring to move much, with Elena trying to mascara his pale lashes black.

"You're too old to be a war bastard," Rude said flatly.

"Yeah, yeah, but you know what I mean."

"Yes."

"We've gotta figure out how deep the Wu clan is in an' where they are. Meaning Wutai Road Trip to do some on-the-ground shit-checking, make an' talk to contacts that ain't gonna be so thrilled talking to a Turk from Midgar or bein' _seen_ talkin' to a Turk from Midgar and that ain't gonna work too well if you look _like_ a Turk from Midgar, an' me and my red hair would have sent up red _flags_," Reno said flatly.

Elena smacked Reno. "Hold still, dammit," she said crossly.

Reno stuck his tongue out at her, but trying to sit a little stiller, then kept on talking. "So we're just gonna bank on the fact that, thanks to our boys during the war, there are a lot of not-so-pureblooded Wutai runnin' around, and so everybody over there has seen or knows at least one half-ShinRa bastard an' so they'll just plug me into that 'half' category. Won't kick up _near_ the fuss it woulda before the war."

"Gotcha," Rude said, figuring he understood close enough--there were enough children who had been fathered by soldiers at war in Wutai that no one would blink anymore at someone who had only vaguely Wutai features but spoke like a native.

"Plus, we got contacts over there, got shit ready for if we ever needed to slip somebody in to do some spy work, and it's all for, well, Tseng," Reno said with a faint grin, looking as if he was mildly amused by it all. "So now _I'm _the half-Wutai guy we're slippin' in. Only, I'm _not_, so we gotta do some work until I _am_."

"And Tseng's never been there?"

"Nope. He pointed out the fatal flaw in all the planning that got done when he found out about it," Reno said with a slightly manic grin.

"And that flaw is?"

"He's Taishangese."

"OK..." Rude said slowly.

"_Meaning_ he speaks Northern with a Taishangese accent, an' _that'll _stick out even if he tries to hide it. But me, I got a Northern accent. Kinda thick one, yo. All them '_er_' sounds I put in," Reno said with a grin, making a sound Rude had no way of even trying to reproduce, then said a bunch of words in Wutai that all had strange, swallowed 'r' sound that Rude couldn't wrap his brain around and had Elena freeze up mid-mascara application, staring at Reno with her jaw hanging open for a moment. "So I'll actually pull this off better'n him, unless I look like a Midgaran with his face painted funny."

"Done," Elena said, and Reno bounced out of the chair.

"Well? Whaddaya think?" Reno said, grinning manically. "I'll have to say I took after my ma an' someone gives me shit an' I'll glare all wounded an' pissed an' try to break their face, but think I'll pass?"

Rude just blinked. It was Reno, but..._not_. The shape of the face and mouth and nose were the same, but everything else was completely different--as if it weren't Reno standing there, but instead a half-Wutai half-brother, and Rude didn't quite know what to make of it, or why it made him feel vaguely uncomfortable, as if something that was taken for granted as a constant suddenly _wasn't_.

Half of everyone in this part of the world had Wutai blood running in them because of the Wutai invasions generations ago; the color may have been washed out but features _hadn't_, and seeing Reno like this made Rude realize that--with his red hair and pale eyes gone and skin color no longer that almost blinding pale, it was easier to see the Wutai bone structure and eye shape. He didn't look full-blooded by any stretch of the imagination, but he didn't look Visgradian any more, either.

"You'll pass," he said, nodding slightly. As soon as Reno opened his mouth and native-level Wutai came flying out, no one would doubt him. And it was good, Rude thought, that they hadn't tried to darken Reno's skin too much; it made it more plausible, ironically enough. And Reno could carry himself with a big enough chip on his shoulder to pull off someone who's been given shit for what they are their whole lives.

"Good! Cause the sooner we get this mission done, the sooner I don't never gotta wear make-up again unless I get the weird urge to cross-dress, and don't _even_ start gettin' funny ideas, you," Reno said with a cheeky grin, and suddenly everything seemed a lot more _normal_, because that grin was pure Reno.

"I'm afraid it's too late for that. But, if it's any consolation, I think you would look quite fetching in a dress. Perhaps a nice forest green," Rude said, and was unsurprised both by the container of make-up that came flying towards him and that it connected with his head. As always.

Rude shook his head to clear it a bit while Reno snickered at him and Elena looked like she wanted to ask for a pay raise, and then had a sudden, horrible thought. "Are you going into Wutai alone?"

It was odd, seeing a look so purely _Reno_ coming from a face that somehow looked so different. "...Do I _look_ like I wanna get my scrawny ass killed?"

"...Am I then to take this to mean Elena and I are also..."

Reno burst out laughing. "Oh, man, if you could see your face right now! And no, don't worry, y'all don't gotta do the whole 'two hours of fuckin' make-up in the fuckin' morning' thing. The second either one of you opened your mouths, it'd be all over. No, no, you two are gonna keep my scrawny ass from gettin' beat too bad. You're gonna play 'bodyguard' for the young Midgar-born-Wutai mobster's son," he said with a grin, looking far too pleased with himself, a big grin on his face, "And Elena, my hot young sex toy who pouted and gave me blow jobs until I agreed to let her come with me to Wutai."

Rude didn't even try to stop Elena from hitting Reno with a howl of outrage; he instead chose to just get out of the way.

"So, Midgar-born-Wutai mobster's son, eh?" Rude said after a while, deciding to get back to business. He could see the wisdom in how they were going--in an odd way, since he and Elena were so obviously Not Wutai, it would help Reno's cover. Reno as he was now next to blonde-haired, blue-eyed Elena seemed a lot more _not Visgradian_ by the contrast. And Rude's own much larger, much sturdier build would make Reno look smaller and thinner than the man, already a reed by almost any metric, was.

Reno nodded. "Yeah. I'm going in as distant member of the Yang clan," he said, pulling out a file.

"How many clans are there?" Rude finally asked, wondering how he had missed yet _another _clan name.

"Three main families in the northern areas," Reno said, plucking at a lock of black hair that fell in his face and staring at it like he wasn't quite used to it. "The Wus, the Lis, and the Yangs. The Yang and Li are from the Beizhou Province, but the Li got bleedover into parts of Taishang, which is why they an' the Wu didn't get along for so long--the Wu are Taishang an' Gwongnaam. There's another big family in the Yamato Province, the Yamamotos, but they tend to not have much to do with the Northern areas--they don't go much past Chochung--and they tend to play nice with ShinRa 'cause of Little Yamato."

Elena groaned. "Am I supposed to remember all this? I swear, half of what's coming out of your mouth all sounds the same--incomprehensible."

Reno gave Elena a sharp look. "Yeah, actually, ya _do_ gotta remember it all."

Elena blinked suddenly at Reno's sharp tone. "I--" she began.

Reno cut her off sharply. "You wanted this job, remember? It ain't all beatin' things with sticks, yo. This is part of it, an' ya either do it or ya need to pack it up an' go home. Don't matter how 'incomprehensible' info is, you hear it and you _remember _it, 'cause if you _don't_, what you don't know might be what gets you or the people you work with _dead_."

Elena's jaw, which had dropped open, shut so fast Rude could almost hear the snap. "Y-yes, sir," she said, and Rude realized with surprise that it was the first time he had actually heard Elena use the word "sir" with Reno.

Reno's face was hard. "Yo, partner. Where're the Yang in Wutai?"

"Beizhou," Rude said, nodding once. "Along with the Li, who extend into Taishang, overlapping with the Wu, who are in Taishang and Gwongnaam."

Reno looked at Elena again, who was staring at the floor. "Whine and bitch all you want 'bout somethin', but you still better be able to _do_ it. 'Cause this ain't a fuckin' _game_."

"Yes sir," she said again, but her voice was so quiet Rude could barely hear it.

"An' if you start cryin', you gotta show me your tits," he said, grinning suddenly.

Rude couldn't quite classify the sound Elena made at that; he chose instead to pick up the folder on his desk and start skimming through it for information while Elena continued to splutter in almost incoherent rage for a few minutes.

He wondered to himself if she had any idea that Reno had probably said that to purposely make her angry. If he hadn't, she'd probably be upset. Well, she was upset now, but it was a different kind of upset; it was an "I am going to flay Reno alive" upset rather than a "I fucked up big time" upset, and one was much easier to deal with.

...Or, he thought, reconsidering, Reno might have figured it was a prime chance to get to see Elena's tits. One never _quite _knew with Reno.

"So when are we shipping out?" Rude asked as he read over the mission perimeters. It looked to be pretty cut and dried: go into Beizhou--Taoyuan, specifically--and not get discovered as Reno did most of the grunt work. He glanced over at the file on Reno's desk and saw how much thicker Reno's file was than his and felt vaguely sorry for the other man.

"Hope you remembered to replace your toothpaste in the 'ship out now' bag from the last time," Reno said with a grin. The grin turned sour. "Serious, though, we got a few hours. I begged Tseng to have at least some time to _try _an' slog through that," he said, gesturing at his file. "I keep tellin' him, I read like a dyslexic _first_ grader, an' he just keeps on not gettin' it," he groaned.

"So I have time to get a change of clothes and more toothpaste."

"Traffic clear up?"

"Should by now."

"Go for it," Reno said, shrugging. "Elena, go, like, grab whatever the shit it is girls need when they go places. And bring, like, sexy shit to wear, too. Gotta play your part, doncha know," he said, and then dodged the pen Elena threw easily. "Gotta work on your speed too, yo," he said, and grinned.

--

They met up about an hour later at the helipad, out of uniform and already changed for undercover work, all carrying bags for a week of being away from home.

"Holy crap, Elena, why do you have so much shit?" Reno said, staring in disbelief at the giant suitcase Elena had.

"It's a week's worth of stuff," she said stiffly.

Reno held up his duffel bag. "So's this!"

She glared. "I'm supposed to be your brainless bimbo girlfriend, right? That requires a lot of 'shit'," she said, and rolled her eyes.

"Shall we go?" Rude asked, looking over his sunglasses. He was the closest to in uniform of the three, as his role was to be Reno's 'bodyguard'.

Reno grinned. "Let's roll. I'm drivin', yo!" he said, and climbed into their helicopter.

"Oh, gods, we're going to crash and die," Elena said under her breath, but shoved her bag into the back and climbed in.

The ride to Junon, because they couldn't exactly fly into Wutai undercover in a ShinRa helicopter, was relatively quiet, most of it spent with Rude and Elena thumbing through their files and guidebooks for information, and Reno piloting with a bored kind of grace, his eyes bright.

Rude suddenly realized, staring at the fake names the three of them were going under, that he was missing a rather vital bit of information. "Hey, partner. How exactly do you pronounce your 'name'? You're going to have to say it for us a few times."

Reno smiled, a smile oddly twisted. "_Luo Li Hong_."

Rude felt like there was a significance there he should have known, but didn't dwell on it, instead distracted by the way Elena's expression had filled with a kind of horrified dismay.

"Try again," she said. "And hopefully something I can _pronounce_ this time."

"Hey! You manage 'Tseng' just fine."

"That's because I _like_ Tseng. You, not so much."

"Yeah, yeah, I know how you like him, Elena," Reno said, getting an evil little teasing smile on his face.

"Don't make me hit you right now."

"Oh, _kinky_," he said with a grin. Quickly followed by "Hey, no smacking when I'm piloting!"

--

They weren't in Wutai for very long before just how much animosity remained towards Easterners became almost painfully evident.

The thing of it was, they were only five years or so out of a war--a long, bloody war that had lasted ten. It only stood to reason that there were a lot of bad feelings. Everyone in Wutai was more than capable of speaking Visgradian--it had become the lingua franca with the rise of ShinRa, and no matter how far-flung the part of Gaia it was, anyone who had gotten an education had learned to speak it, and any place ShinRa had taken over had long ago been encouraged, through Visgradian replacing whatever the tongue of that region was in the schools, to become the common tongue of that region, and it had been an extremely successful policy; even since before ShinRa's military forays, it had been obvious that to succeed, you needed Visgradian, and so people had started teaching it to their children anyway.

But not Wutai.

Wutai still clung to her old ways, trapped in her proud, imperialistic past perhaps, and had disdained everything from the eastern continents as if unable to forget that one long ago she had conquered them. And here was a different world; filled with buildings and sites nowhere in the east, and the air filled not with the common Visgradian you heard everywhere else in the world out on the streets, but Wutai.

The trip through Taoyuan to their inn was jarring when compared to how it had been in the other areas of Wutai, like Gwongnaam. Here, people _stared_. And not simply staring, but glaring, full of open animosity. Storekeepers, standing in the doorways and yelling for customers went silent at the sight of them. Children clutched tightly to their mothers. And everyone _glared_.

"I always heard the Wutai were friendly," Elena whispered to Rude.

"In the tourist areas, perhaps," he said, feeling as uncomfortable as she looked. He had been to Wutai before, but it had never been like this. "But this is not a tourist area," he ended, and wondered if perhaps that was part of it. Taoyuan was a fairly large city, but for some reason, it was little known outside of Wutai. It was almost as if the whole Jiuquan region was a giant blank; the sheer _lack_ of any mention in any of the guidebooks he had flipped through on the ride over stood out. The only mention given was that there was an ancient road, the Quanlu Road, that passed through Jiuquan to Nankyo, and the Wangxiang Pavilion--and that was listed as being inaccessible because the paths there were in disrepair and had been long before the war.

Past that, nothing, for the entire region. Most small villages in Wutai had more sites of interest than the city of Taoyuan.

But then, Jiuquan, Taoyuan in particular, was also a hotbed of Wutai mafia, and he could see why they would try to keep the Easterners out. Welcoming to tourists, it was not.

...And Reno had apparently had enough; someone stared too hard at them and walked into a pole, and Reno snapped.

Rude had no idea what it was that Reno yelled at the man exactly, but it was enough to make the man's eyes all but fly out of his head. The man yelled something back, and Reno sneered back an answer along with making a gesture of some sort, and the next thing Rude knew the man was leaping at Reno, looking determined to rip his face off.

Rude stepped in immediately. Reno was more than capable of defending himself, but they had their parts to play, and before the man could make contact with Reno, Rude had him wrestled to the ground.

"I'm afraid I can not allow you to injure the young master," he said softly, lines and phrasing for the part memorized. He twisted the man's arm until he let out a small sound of pain, and then released him. "I hope my point is made." The man nodded once, and Rude stood. The man gave all of them an angry look, then took off, and Reno rolled his eyes.

"Loser," he said, shaking his head, and gestured for them to follow him.

The odd thing of it was, it seemed to make things a little better.

The Wutai, Rude thought, were strange.

When they finally got to their inn, it was almost nightfall, and Elena made a beeline for the nearest bathroom in their inn while Reno got them their room keys.

Elena came out of the bathroom looking disgusted. "Gods, why is Wutai such a _dump_?" she said, making a face. "Have you seen the toilets?!"

"You're th'one what wanted ta come, sweetcheeks," Reno said with a grin. "I toldja to stay in Midgar, but nooooo...." he said.

Elena glared, but didn't miss a beat. "You didn't tell me about the toilets! I thought it'd be a nice little vacation, and I wanted to see Wutai!"

"And now you're seein' it!" he said with a grin, and Elena--or rather, Marith Erdmann--glared back at him.

The clerk stared at them, narrowing his eyes at Elena for a split second before handing keys to Reno--Li Hong--and smiling in a way that was so patently falsely polite that Rude wondered what they had gotten themselves into.

--

The alarm clock the next morning went off far too early, in Rude's mind. He blinked awake slowly, wondering why it was still ringing before he saw Reno's hand come out and smack the thing. Hard. He blinked slowly at Reno, trying to register when it was too early and there was a distinct lack of coffee to help with the waking aspect of things.

"You can go back to sleep," Reno mumbled, scratching his head and glaring blearily over at Rude before he crawled out of his bed. "Makeup. Gotta. Yeah," he muttered, and Rude didn't hear if there was anything after that.

It was much later that the alarm on Rude's PHS began to buzz, and he woke quickly at the familiar sound.

"'Bout time you woke up," Reno said with a grin, and Rude wondered how it was the man was that awake and functional. And not only that, had obviously been awake for a while; there was a towel that looked damp in the middle of the floor, and Reno was awake and doing the last of his makeup, darkening his eyelashes with mascara.

"How long have you been awake?"

"'Bout two hours," Reno said, making a face. "This shit takes time an' I don't know what I'm doin'. An' I ordered food. Should be here in, like, ten minutes, so I gotta finish this quick," he said, looking at his right eyelashes carefully in the mirror before starting his left. "Do me a favor, put this crap away?"

Rude nodded and began clearing the makeup and applicators and assorted other things Reno used to make himself look half-Wutai. Reno had just finished the last of it when there was a knock at the door. He stuffed the mascara into pocket, then was on his feet to door.

Rude answered first. Body guarding he of course knew well, and one would never let their charge answer the door. "Yes?" he asked, and looked down at the slight Wutai maid at the door. Her hands tightened tightly around the handle of the cart she pushed, but she took a moment to steel herself.

"Room service, sir," she said, a faint accent to her Visgradian, and sounding like she had practiced it over and over again.

Reno said something in Wutai, and the woman nodded, then realized he couldn't see her and said something back in a loud enough voice to carry to Reno.

"Let her in. It's breakfast," he said, and Rude stepped aside. She pushed the cart aside, and instantly Rude ceased to exist; she spread the dishes out and directed every comment, in Wutai, to Reno, then bowed to him and left.

--

It set the tone for the rest of the day, it turned out--people would startle at seeing Rude and Elena, then completely tune them out in a very obvious way in favor of Reno. The entire day was spent going from one place to another, with Reno introducing the three of them in Wutai, then a lot of bowing, and then Rude and Elena ceased to exist.

The two of them discovered quickly that here, they were not simple completely useless, but pointedly, uncomfortably invisible--not in a not-seen way, but in an "ignored" way where everyone was watching them out of the corners of their eyes and trying to pretend they weren't, and their eyes slid away if Rude or Elena looked at them, only to return as soon as it was 'safe.'

"This is so weird," Elena muttered, and Rude had to agree with her sentiment--he'd been to Wutai before, multiple times, but it had _never_ been like this, and it was putting him on edge.

"Very few people from the other continents venture into this region," he said in a low voice, knowing they were being listened to. Taoyuan was buried deep in a forest; it was odd to think a mafia family had sprung from such a cut-off area. But the Yang somehow had. The Li were from the capital, which made more sense, and the Yamamotos had sprung up in Nankyo, another major city. Taoyuan...there was nothing here. Nothing. Even with the secrecy the Wutai all but prided themselves on, this place made no sense whatsoever. It was ringed by a forest and mountains--what could be here to spur an underworld and a mafia to run it? "I suppose no one is used to foreigners."

"I guess," she said, wrapping her arms around herself and looking slightly unnerved.

"You can return home, Miss Erdmann," he said softly, fully aware of the eyes and ears on them.

Elena startled slightly, then narrowed her eyes. "I already told Lee I'm want to see Wutai! I'm a big girl, you know!" she said, putting her hands on her hips and poking her lip out.

"Yes, miss," Rude said. "My apologies."

Elena humphed, seeming every bit the spoiled little rich girl she was supposed to be.

The fell into silence and waiting for Reno to finish up. It was a relief when he did; things had grown heavier and more uncomfortable.

"Are you done yet? I didn't come to Wutai to sit around looking at walls!" Elena said, pouting again, and Rude had to admit to himself that she was very good at it.

"I'm here on business, babe!" Reno said, making a frustrated gesture. "All you gotta do is come for this and then you can shop to your little heart's content."

"How many more?" she asked petulantly, and she was _very _good at this. Good enough that if he wondered if it was all acting. It had been a pretty boring yet nerve wracking day, after all.

"Just one more, babe," Reno said, clearly enjoying getting to call Elena that and her not being able to smack him for it. "One Mr. Hu, and then we can go back to the hotel and you can make my day lots better," he said with a leer.

"Oh, _you_," Elena said, and tittered, but Rude didn't miss the way her eye twitched before she let out that giggle.

--

"We're goin' explorin'," Reno said when Elena came over the next morning, grinning.

"Getting information?" Elena asked.

"No. Hanging out around the city and bein' tourists."

Elena frowned, her expression severe. "Reno, we're here for _work_, not to have fun!"

Reno rolled his eyes. "OK, Imma explain this. We are on a mission, yeah. I know that. We are playin' the parts of the spoiled, rich, half-ghost mob kid, his Midgaran sex toy, and bodyguard...all on _their first trip to Wutai_," he said, before Elena could blow up again over being described as "sex toy." "Meanin', in order to be realistic, we gotta go out and be tourists. This _is_ part of the job," he said, raising an eyebrow. "We gotta go out an' be seen and all that crap."

All of which sounded perfectly valid, and probably was, but Rude didn't miss the way Reno's eyes were dancing at the thought of heading out there and poking around like a little kid. Realistically, Rude thought, today was probably the only day that Reno could go out and play tourist--Reno'd spent half the night on the phone, talking to people in Wutai, and scribbling out times and dates and what looked like names. Rude wasn't sure; half of what Reno'd written that weren't numbers had been in bopomofo, with a few characters thrown in, and only a few words in Visgradian.

Elena rolled her eyes. "Fine, fine," she said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Once I've had a chance to brush my teeth, let's go. Oh, and you better find me a place with _real_ food, not that liquidy rice slop they keep giving us for breakfast," she said, shaking her head, and Reno looked at her like she was nuts.

--

"Elena, y'know, ya have to at least try, here. You're supposed to be my bit of Midgaran tail, here," Reno said in a low whisper, after they had been wandering around Taoyuan for about an hour or so.

Rude didn't miss how Reno's next move was to smoothly get out of the way of the kick Elena aimed at his shin.

"Serious, though," Reno said, actually getting rid of the leering smile for a bit. "You've got to play the part, yo."

Elena gave a little twitch, then did her job--she sucked it up and took leaned in closer to Reno.

"Now that's better. I can feel your tit now," Reno said, the leering grin coming back. His next sound was a started "Ouch!" as she stomped on his foot.

Rude ignored them, his attention caught suddenly by something else. "Hey, what are those?" he said, pointing discreetly at a street vender, selling...some kind of things on long sticks. It looked vaguely like fruit, but they were all coated with something, some with something clear and shiny, some with what looked vaguely like chocolate and some with what looked like sprinkles. And there were a lot of children, running up and buying them with small coins.

Reno looked perplexed. "Fuckall if I know, man. It's my first time here, too. I ain't never seen one before."

Rude kept watching the vendor handing out the laden-down sticks with vague interest, wondering what they tasted like, when Reno barked out a laugh.

"You're sad, you know that?" Reno said with a grin, shaking his head. "Wait here," he said, and let go of Elena's arm and trotted over to the vendor. He came back a few minutes later with three sticks and handed one to each of them. "Here. According to the kid what got one right before me, they're called _tang hu lu_ and are a winter thing here. They just started selling today."

"Because it's fucking freezing," Elena said under her breath, and took a bite. "Hey, this is pretty good!" she said, sounding slightly surprised.

Rude took a bite and had to admit that Elena was right. Reno had given him the one that looked like the Wutai fruit on the skewer was chocolate-coated, but one bite taught him that the fruit had been first candied, _then_ dipped in chocolate. He took another bite, then another, enjoying the contrast in textures between the fruit center and the hard sugar coating and the chocolate, and...

"...Man, you need to watch it before you embarrass yourself in public," Reno said, biting his lip against bursting out laughing. "_Damn_."

Rude frowned slightly, not knowing what Reno was talking about.

They had walked a bit further, and by then Rude had finished his _tang hu lu_. But for some reason, Reno and Elena had only barely touched theirs, and he wondered if it wasn't to their taste.

No accounting for taste, he decided, since they really were quite tasty. "...Are you gonna eat that, partner?" he asked Reno, nodding his head slightly to the sweet.

Reno snickered. "I _was_. But never mind," he said, and handed it to Rude.

Rude took it, figuring Reno must be full or something. After all, Reno was just _holding_ his, and that was a waste, honestly. _Tang hu lu _were delicious.

He took a bite and thought he really did like these things, and for some reason, even Elena snickered that time and said something about how she'd better eat hers or Rude was going to steal it when she wasn't looking.

He ignored them. The _tang hu lu_ really was quite good, after all.

Too bad they were so _small_.

--

The week passed in a blur of inactivity for Rude. Reno was meeting with people, and they were meetings where Easterners were very patently not allowed. Not that it would have done any good; from the very beginning everything was done in Wutai, and Rude's head began to hurt after just a few minutes of it. It pretty quickly turned into Rude escorting Reno places, and then being half the time being dismissed to the Inn and told Reno would call him. Rude had objected the first time, only to have Reno--or rather, Li Hong--ask him sharply if he was insulting their hosts' ability to keep them safe and their goodwill. So most of the time he returned to the inn to go over information with Elena and play the tourist. They had seen the Quanlu Road--nothing special, just an old road--and took pictures of the Wangxiang Pavilion from it, and then looked at each other and went back to the Inn to look at data again.

He'd give Elena credit, though. She'd taken the fact that she had nothing to do at all and started to play the bored and spoiled girlfriend part extremely well--in front of people she would pout and stomp her foot about being left behind, and finally ventured out a few times and came back laden with things from shops, and more than once Rude had watched her yelling "_Too expensive_!" and bartering prices in Wutai. Reno'd taught her that much, and a few useful phrases, on a whim the third day they were there, and she'd taken it and run.

Meanwhile, Reno was meeting with the members of the Yang clan, and coming back to the Inn looking twitchy and with hours of data from his wires, much of which he translated and what he couldn't he sent to Tseng. There was nothing much that Elena and Rude could do to help him with that, but once they got the translated materials, they began doing what they could, correlating and analyzing whatever they got from Reno and Tseng.

There was still a big piece missing, some kind of connection bringing the Li and Wu together, and Reno just shrugged, saying they weren't telling him and he couldn't press yet. But that he'd get it. Somehow. And saying they were going to have to stay longer--the week got extended to a month after one long phone call with Tseng over some of the new info that had come in from the Midgar underground.

Not long after that, Reno started slipping out nights, pulling Rude to go with him, to stand and look dangerous while Reno met with the shadier end of things, and the shady end of 'mafia' was pretty shady.

Rude had a bad feeling about all of this, especially with the way Reno would sometimes just stare distracted out into space or was vibrating like a live wire from barely held in check anger some days, but knew there was nothing he could do but hope the information they were missing came sooner rather than later. Something was getting to Reno more than an assignment normally did, but since Reno wasn't the "open up and talk about it" kind of guy and Rude wasn't the "pour out your emotions to me" kind of guy, he just passed Reno a shot of the unpronounceable rotgut Wutai specialized in, and kept Elena busy with cross-referencing work.

And today was another boring day, Elena sent out to go be seen in town and Rude standing outside of a closed door, waiting. The boring days were set to end, however; they were slated to return to Midgar in two days.

It seemed like an eternity passed before Reno came out and they bowed their farewells to the elder members of the Yang family. "We got dinner plans," Reno said as soon as they got outside. "Somethin' formal, 'cause this is at the head guy's place. THE Yang house," Reno finished, glaring slightly. Days when he was at the head residence, Rude remembered suddenly, were always the worse for Reno. He was fine there, if tenser than normal, and usually ended up that live wire angry from between the time they left to the time they had arrived at the Inn. Rude had asked once or twice what had happened, but after getting a sharp, "Nothin'" followed by Reno drinking in the _bad _way every time, in the kind of mood Reno usually only got over by killing, drinking, fucking, or whatever self-destructive behaviour he could manage, Rude stopped asking and kept Elena out of Reno's way. "I got, like, a bad feelin'," Reno said suddenly. "Can't explain it or nothin', just got this feeling."

Rude frowned slightly. "Do you think they're planning something?"

"Hard to say. Maybe they suspect something, I dunno. Might just be paranoid, I been on edge this whole time 'cause one little rain storm or someone looks too close an' everythin' goes tits u...ooh, hold up, man," Reno said, holding up a hand and staring into the shop.

"Yes?" he said, wondering what Rude had seen. It looked like a normal clothing store. A normal _woman's_ clothing store.

"In here, yo. Stuff we gotta pick up," he said, and headed in. Rude followed, feeling vaguely confused, and wondering just what Reno wanted from a woman's clothing store. Reno immediately went over to a clerk and started talking at his normal rapid-fire pace, and Rude resigned himself to simply waiting until after to find out what was going on.

He began to get an idea, though, after the sales clerk began bringing out dresses, and dresses that most certainly would _not_ fit Reno, so Rude knew the man had not been overtaken by an odd desire to cross dress.

"Hey, you pay more attention than me. What's Elena-sized?" Reno said, gesturing at the dresses. Rude blinked and looked over the dress choices, and frowned slightly, trying to figure out which would be closer to Elena, and selected two dresses that seemed right. Reno looked over them, then grinned, pointed to a dress, and pulled out a charge card, and Rude thought vaguely that Elena was going to kill Reno.

That said, it was a very nice dress. It was very sparkly. And Reno remembered to get shoes and a coat to go with it, even if he did need Rude to size them. And he picked out some odd kind of hair decoration things that the salesperson directed him to. Reno had a good eye, Rude thought to himself, and the ensemble was nicely matched together.

But Elena was _still_ going to kill him.

--

They stopped by another store, this one for men's clothing. Reno quickly bought himself an outfit, as dressy as the one for Elena.

Reno tugged at his collar when he came out of the changing room, and Rude was startled at how _Wutai_ he looked. He thought he'd gotten used to it, but he seemed he hadn't, and he suddenly missed Reno's shockingly red hair and indistinct eyes. "Man, I hated these things when I was a kid at Wutai New Years' an' all the other times I had to wear it," he said, making a face. "I hate havin' shit around my neck. You're lucky, you can dress normal."

"For these 'dinner plans' What are they, exactly?" Rude asked, not having a clue why Reno had gone on this shopping spree.

"A farewell dinner or somethin'," he said. "Since we're leavin'."

"Ah," Rude said, nodding. That made sense, then.

"Still gotta bad feelin'," Reno muttered, then shook his head. "An' I'm getting outta this damn thing before I choke or somethin'," he said, scrabbling at the buttons at his neck in disgust. "Dinner better have some serious fireworks for this shit, man," he muttered under his breath, and headed back into the changing room, and Rude wondered just what kind of 'fireworks' Reno had meant.

--

While Elena didn't kill Reno, it was a near thing.

Elena was fuming as she gestured at the dress. It fit her well, and Rude was proud his eye had been right, but knew better than to say anything. "I don't fucking believe you're making me wear this," she said, sounding mildly disgusted. "Would it have killed you to find something with sleeves?! I'm going to fucking _freeze--"_

"Hey, I got you a coat, too, yo!"

"--and if this slit went any higher, I might as well not be wearing this!" she yelled, ignoring Reno's defensive interjection.

"Not wearing it works for me. Body like that, naked will work," Reno said with a cheerful leer.

Elena was fast, Rude would give her that. But Reno was faster, so the leftover chopstick she ran over and snatched off the table then tried to stab through Reno's hand only ended up embedded in the table where his hand _had_ been.

At this rate, Rude thought approvingly, one of these days she might actually manage to get out of trainee hell.

--

The Yang residence was the largest compound in all of Taoyuan, one that didn't surprise them at all. It was a large, sprawling area, clearly the residence of the rulers of the city. The Yang ruled Taoyuan completely, that much had become very obvious quickly. This was a mafioso city, and everyone there knew it.

"Anyone screw up, an' we ain't fucked, we're _dead_," Reno said flatly, before they entered, and Rude and Elena nodded. Rude wondered, then, if it was the pressure of the Yang residency that made Reno act as he did whenever he came from meeting with the higher-level Yang family members. It had, he thought, to be more than the slightest bit nerve wracking. Reno was a good fighter, but he had to know when even he was meeting impossible odds, and being found out in the Yang family compound--a slipped word, something going wrong with the wire, his makeup wiping off--would have meant his death. Anyone would be jumpy and on edge in and after that kind of situation. "So just smile, eat, an' don't say nothin', you got me?" he said, looking straight at Elena.

"Yeah, I got you," she said, narrowing her eyes. "Dumb, blonde bimbo, remember? No one's going to talk to me anyway, just ogle me in this," she said, looking at her dress in disgust.

"Why d'you think I picked it?" Reno said with a grin, and buzzed the gate for entrance.

--

Rude had gotten used to having to stand for a long time and being ignored--it was his role as bodyguard. However, standing and watching as everyone else ate sucked pretty hard.

Reno owed him a pizza and a round for this.

Elena gave him a sympathetic look, but that didn't stop her eyes from nearly falling out at the first round of food placed before her. "Oh, I barely know where to start!" she let out, and the sheer joy in her voice really made Rude hope she was stuck in Trainee Hell for a few more years. She dug right into the food, probably figuring it was safer than trying to make small-talk and that this way, she wouldn't risk letting anything slip.

That, and the food looked amazing. The joyful sound Elena made when she took a bite didn't help Rude's bad mood.

"Like it that much, babe?" Reno said with a leer. "Usually I don't hear that noise from you at a _banquet_."

"Oh, Lee, stop embarrassing me!" she said with a pout, but Rude didn't miss the way her hands tightened on the chopsticks. "This food is so wonderful!" she said to Hu, one of the men Reno had met with several times over the course of the month, who was sitting next to Reno. "I've never had Wutai food this good in Midgar!"

Hu scoffed. "Oh course not. It's Midgar. They can only manage pale imitations of Wutai's glory, after all," he said, a smug smile on his face. "Midgar is still a place trying to be Wutai. Why else would you still use the number wuzi that were used by the Imperial Court of Wutai and brought over when Wutai ruled that continent long ago?"

Reno grinned. "I figure they're just kind of stuck. Don't use 'em that much, other than for sectors and trains."

"Ah, but what of the ShinRa company, which even now proclaims its name in Wutai in its very logo? ShinRa wants nothing more than an empire as vast as Wutai's once was, which is why Wutai was so important for that company to subjugate. When you can not properly emulate, all that is left is to destroy that which taunts you, like a child breaking its toys."

Reno said something in Wutai and raised his glass, as did Hu. "But," he said, switching back into Standard, "it _is_ ShinRa's world now. Which is why we gotta play nice with what's beyond just Wutai."

"For now, perhaps. But all empires fall. And when they fall...we will still be here," Hu said with a faint smile. "But no unpleasantness. I know your home is Midgar and your mother...well. We must adapt," Hu said, and Reno gave him a tight smile, but nodded.

Hu raised his voice slightly, leaning over towards Elena. "Tell me, Miss Erdmann, what have you thought of our Taoyuan? Very few outsiders come here."

"It's lovely," she said, giving Hu a plastic smile. "I did so much shopping. My friends will be so jealous. And I saw so many cute little places! I just wish I could have seen more, but Lee was busy and didn't like me traveling alone," she said with a pout. "Most of my trip here was spent cramped up in a hotel room."

"Oh, now that's a pity. The forests are truly beautiful. You leave the day after tomorrow, correct?"

Elena nodded.

"If you have a chance before you leave, might I suggest visiting one of our...special temples?"

Hu gave Reno a sideways glance, then smiled slightly and continued. "It's called the Yin Long Temple? It's one of the holiest places in Wutai, and so hidden that even when ShinRa destroyed our country, it was left standing. Yin Long guards his home and the secrets within it still, after all," Hu said, a secretive little smile on his face. "It's not far from here, in the forests between here and Jiuyuan."

"Jiuyuan?" Elena said, blinking. "I...I don't remember seeing that name in my guidebooks, other than something about the Quanlu road. Or anything about the Yin Long Temple...."

Hu smiled. "That is because it is a holy place, Ms. Erdmann. It is a treasure of Wutai, and we have kept it hidden well, lest ShinRa destroy one of the few things we have left to feel pride in."

Rude blinked, something clicking into place. Suddenly, things made sense; why this whole region was shrouded in such bland mediocrity in the East, and why everyone had glared so strongly at he and Elena. This place was protected by the Wutai; they were a threat simply by being there.

It made him wonder what other places the Wutai hid, and how they managed it, after ten years of warfare and five years of occupation. And why it was that ShinRa had been determined to take over Wutai, and yet had left it so undeveloped and backwater. It made no sense at all; nothing about Wutai had ever made sense, but Rude knew better than to ever ask questions. Information may have been his job, and because of that he knew that sometimes, there was information it was better _not_ to have because of the consequences of the seeking or the having.

Hu turned and said something suddenly to Reno in Wutai. He could pick out a few words, but he wasn't entirely sure of them as it was, just because there were so many _tones_. Words that sounded the exact same to him were, according to Reno, completely different because of their intonation, and it was utterly beyond him. Reno nodded and soon enough paper and pencil were produced and Hu was drawing something out for Reno, directions maybe, and Rude couldn't wait until they were back _home_.

--

"What are we doing today?" Elena asked, poking at her breakfast.

"No plans. Just waitin' to hear from Lao Hu, then gettin' ready to leave tomorrow morning," Reno said, pausing briefly in his all-out attack on his own food. "An' if you ain't gonna eat that, pass it over."

"We should go to that temple," Elena said suddenly as she handed Reno the bowl.

"The temple?" Rude said, sounding surprised. "The one Mr. Hu mentioned last night? Yin Long Temple?"

She nodded. "Yeah. They...That Hu guy said It's something the Wutai have been hiding from ShinRa, and..." She trailed off, sounding slightly embarrassed, her cheeks pinking faintly. "It seemed like a good idea."

"It is," Rude said softly. "I noticed in the guidebooks that this area is...bare. There's nothing here, but to an extent that's unusual. A city this size should not be one barely anyone on the other continents know."

Reno grow slightly serious. "Yeah. That's weird, eh? I figured we had, like, every inch of this place mapped up, what with the way the SOLDIERs all practically firebombed the whole continent."

"And it's also unusual for a mafia to spring up in an area like this," Rude said, frowning slightly. "There's nothing here to cause a mafia. Mafias only spring up when there is something underground that needs governance of some sort, such as illegal trade. That's why most spring up originally in port cities. Which Taoyuan is most definitely _not_."

Reno frowned as well, and Elena blinked several times, her eyes wide as she began processing it.

"So they gotta be hidin' something," Reno said, and stuck a full spoon in his mouth.

"Right."

Reno's frown got deeper. "Lao Hu said somethin' 'bout it, too," he said from around the spoon, then took it out and swallowed. "Said if I was a Yang then I needed to go to the temple. I dunno what he could mean by that, but it's gotta have somethin' to do with the Yang syndicate. Weird runnin' it out a temple, but seein' as don't nobody know about, it could be a good cover."

"So we should investigate," Rude said softly. "Good call, Elena," he said with a nod, and Elena looked oddly proud of herself.

Reno couldn't let that one stand, it seemed. "Hope you got sturdy shoes," he said, giving Elena a grin. "'Cause looks like we got some hikin' in the middle of the forest with no clear paths to do."

--

Elena didn't have good hiking shoes, so she made them wait in a shoe store as she tried to find herself a pair of boots. Reno got fidgety and bored after ten minutes, and Rude found his attention wandering after twenty, and they went into another store to buy food for the trek.

"What's that?" Rude said as something caught his eye, and pointed to a bin full of something small and individually wrapped.

Reno picked out out and frowned at the writing, and then snickered. "Man, how do you _do_ that? You got some weird kind of Candy-Find Materia or somethin'?" he said with grin. "White Chocobo Creamy Candy." He rolled his eyes good-naturedly, then added a couple of pieces to their bag.

"I didn't say I wanted it," Rude said, somewhat defensively.

"Right, sure you don't," Reno said, and rolled his eyes again. Rude was trying to figure out how to respond to that, when Elena bounded in in sturdy climbing boots.

"Ready when you guys are," she said.

"We ready, or you gonna go Lure out more chocobo candy?" Reno said with a grin, and then laughed until he was holding his stomach at what Rude just assumed was the confused look on Elena's face, because he couldn't figure out what else could have set the man off like that.

--

The path leading up to the temple was more of a hike than any of them were expecting. After the third time, Reno was snarling that if he got one more tree branch in the face, he was setting the whole forest on fire, and Rude was beginning to wonder if it was all just a gold chocobo chase when Elena let out a breathless, "Freya bless!"

The temple seemed to come out of nowhere, arising out from the wilderness of the mountainous forest, almost jarringly neat and well-ordered. Rude had been expecting something closer to temple ruins than to what this was. It was like stepping into a different world, once they passed the temple gates, stepping onto the temple grounds. The place was somehow even stiller than the forest, and their breathing seemed loud as they headed into the actual Yin Long Temple.

They only saw one temple attendant, who took one look at them, grew wide-eyed, and then vanished, leaving the three of them alone in a temple.

"Well, shit," Reno let out in an impressed voice as he looked around.

"Oh, _wow_, look!" Elena let out, staring wide-eyed at the large statue of the god inside the temple. It was pretty damned impressive, Rude had to admit. The level of detail to the statue was stunning, down to the long hair in the style of a Wutai soldier from the Warring Era to the drape of sculpted cloth to the armor covering the statue's stomach, forearms, and shins. In his right hand, the statue held a shining black globe of what almost looked like an oversized materia and in his left a sword; his expression was wild and terrible, looking every bit the god of war. But the weird thing was that at his feet were flowers, sculpted to look as if they were springing up from his steps.

The Wutai, Rude thought, and not for the first time, were _strange_.

"So what's that say?" Elena said, staring at a plaque in front of the statue.

Reno frowned, and began trying to read it aloud, struggling over a few places when he tried to remember the character and outright skipping some with a "dunno that one," or "dunno that one, neither," but, Rude thought with something vaguely akin to pride, Reno could actually read a fair amount of it now, a far cry from the man who had been slumped at his desk, surrounded by books and looking lost.

"Somethin' about this guy, the Silver Dragon, Yin Long," he said, and the way he said "Yin Long" bore no relation to the way it sounded coming out of Rude's mouth. "Yin Long is, like, the Wutai war god. War and Harvest, what the fuck, like those two make sense together. Anyway he was born around here, or somethin' like that."

There was another statue, impressive in an entirely different way--it was the same Wutai god, but with two faces. "The double-headed Yin Long," Reno said, peering at the plaque. One side was making the same terrifying face as the first statue, but the second face was serene, eyes half closed and a faint smile on its face.

"I've never seen a statue like that before," Elena said, staring at it wide-eyed. "I mean...I've seen pictures of Wutai art, and saw statues in museums, on school trips, but...nothing like this."

"Nor I," Rude said. "I've never even heard of the double-headed Yin Long. Or seen a statue of the Silver Dragon like either of these."

Elena nodded. "The...the clothes are different from the statue of the Silver Dragon at the Midgar Museum of Art. He was never holding anything but a sword and you could never see his hair because of the armor. This is...this is so different, both of these."

"I've seen it before," Reno said suddenly, then clinched his jaw shut.

"When?" Elena asked, looking surprised.

"When I was kid," he said. "Nothin', I'm prolly rememberin' wrong or somethin'," he said, and shrugged. "You 'bout ready to go? That walk back ain't gonna walk itself, an' if we don't go soon, we'll get completely assbackwards lost in the forest in the dark, yo."

Rude nodded. "He's right. And there doesn't seem to be anything here but these statues."

Elena frowned. "Why would they hide statues? There has to be something else."

"Not necessarily," Rude said, pushing up his sunglasses. "You mentioned the Midgar Museum of Art...most, if not all, of its Wutai collection was taken during the war."

Elena stared at him blankly.

"This place seems to be holy, and these statues are rare. They would be worth a lot to a museum or an art collector," Rude said softly. "Most temples here have had their holy relics taken. I can see why they would want to avoid that fate here," he said, and looked back at the main statue. "That one is probably worth a sum that only President ShinRa could afford."

"..._oh_," Elena said, and swallowed. "Yeah...yeah, I guess I can see why they'd keep it secret, then."

"Are you done yet? I think I just grew twenty years or somethin'," Reno whined, rolling his eyes. "I slept through most of school for a _reason_."

"You're such a baby," Elena muttered. "And yes, we can go." She took one last look at the statues, then they headed outside. They had only just passed through the temple gates when Elena let out a sudden, "Oh shit!"

"Oh, fuck!" Reno said, and grinned. "See, I can cuss, too!"

"Oh, shut up," Elena said. "I...I, uh, just remembered. I wanted to see if I can find a good luck charm. It's a _temple_, they're bound to sell them. Do you mind waiting?"

Her eyes darted off to the side and back again. Rude looked over quickly, surreptitiously, but only saw a group of men, likely tourists themselves, coming up the path.

"Souvenirs, eh?" Reno said blithely, a grin on his face. "It ain't like they don't sell 'em in Midgar or nothin'..."

"Bite me," Elena shot back.

Reno grinned. "OK. Where?"

Elena tried to kick Reno in the shins, but he wasn't known as the quickest of the Turks for nothing. He grinned at her and Elena let out an annoyed sound and stomped back into the temple.

"You know, I'm waiting for her to just pull out a gun and shoot you one day," Rude said conversationally.

"Even if she does, her aim still sucks," Reno said with a grin.

A tentative voice interrupted them. "_Excuse me, are you Master Luo Li Hong_?"

Reno turned, looking surprised. "_Who are you_?" he said in Wutai to the men who had come up to them, three of the four Elena had looked over at, and Rude was mildly proud of himself for having understood that short conversation. He didn't understand a single word of the rest that came out of Reno's mouth, but he _did_ understand that they were quite fucked when the men who had approached them pulled out guns.

--

There were some things that Rude hated very much.

He hated being abducted at gunpoint. He hated not knowing where he was, and 'featureless room in Wutai' wasn't enough. He hated being tied up and being outnumbered by people who looked like they knew what those weapons they had were used for. And he really, _really_ hated that he had no idea what exactly was being said. There were, of course, fragments he could understand--he had long since learned "Where is" and "I don't know," and he was hearing enough of both to make him not like the way this was heading.

All in all, it was adding up to be a very bad day.

Rude was trying to follow what was going on, for all he didn't understand what Hu was yelling at Reno over and over again. He'd picked up just enough Wutai to understand one part: Where is yang zhao xi. He had no idea what they were talking about, but the more he heard, the more it sounded like a person.

Reno wasn't helping. He was yelling back, saying over and over again that he didn't know along with a lot of other things Rude couldn't begin to figure out. Then came a full sentence Rude did understand.

"_We didn't know he was in Midgar, either_!"

He. Or she. Or _it_. All of them were the same word in spoken Wutai, and Rude wondered how anyone actually managed to communicate in the blasted language. The only thing coming through loud and clear was that Hu had set them up for a trap; the questions now were why and who was he working for.

"Since you are being so obdurate," the man said, narrowing his eyes, and switching into Visgradian, "Perhaps you will be of more use," he said, and turned to Rude. "So I ask you. Where is Shi De Ting?"

Rude stared at him, no expression on his face even though he flinched inside--Shi had come back to haunt them, it looked like, and that name gave him a pretty good idea just who was behind this. "I have no idea who he or she is."

"I'm sure," he said, his voice all but dripping with contempt. "Well then, how about Yang Zhao Xi? Where is Yang Zhao Xi?"

The blank expression was easier this time, because he well and truly had no idea who that was. "I have no idea who that person might be, either," Rude said, not even knowing if "Yang Zhao Xi" was male or female.

"Really," the man said, and something shifted over Reno's face, something quicksilver and warning Rude to be _careful. _"I find it hard that _anyone_ in _any way_ connected to the Yang clan would _not_ know Yang Zhao Xi."

"I am a bodyguard, nothing more," he said flatly. "My concern is not the intricacies of the Yang clan, but protecting Young Master Luo."

"An' I already told you, last we heard, Yang Zhao Xi was _dead_!" Reno yelled angrily. "D-E-A-D, dead!" He yelled something in Wutai, and Rude took a wild guess as to assume it was the same statement.

Something was off in Reno's voice, so faint that if Rude hadn't known Reno so well he would have missed it. But now was not the time, and it gave Rude enough information to know that Yang Zhao Xi person was dead as far as Hu was supposed to know. He wished Reno had filled him in on whoever this Yang Zhao Xi was beforehand--the name had never come up in any of their intel, as far as Rude knew--but it was too late now.

Reno was saying something again in Wutai, and there was suspicion so thick in his voice that even though Rude didn't understand the words, sentiment came through. And then Reno got the "I'm already fucked, might as well go for broke" look on his face, and Rude really wished he understood what it was Reno had just spat out at Hu, because it was always better to be forewarned.

Especially given the sharp, insulting laugh Hu just gave. "You're one to talk, about someone being a double-crosser and not who they say they are. You asked far too many questions to too many people about the Wu, 'Xiao Luo,'" he said, and contempt dripped from his voice. "I don't know who _you _really are, but this has gone far enough," Hu said, and there was something dangerous in his voice and in how he _didn't _use Wutai. "You are _not_ a Yang, and you obviously know too much. If nothing else, you have violated an inviolable law of Jiuquan," he said with a dark smile, and looked straight at Rude. "You have brought outsiders to the Temple of the Silver Dragon. If you were truly a Yang, you would have known your companions would be killed for that, since it is the charge of the Yang to guard it."

It was rather disconcerting to realize how easily the three of them had walked into a trap.

While Hu had been talking, Reno's PHS buzzed. It buzzed three rings, then cut off, then buzzed again for two.

Elena was definitely getting recommended to advance beyond 'trainee' for this one. There had been four men at the temple; three of them had gone for Rude and Reno and one of them had gone after Elena, and she had definitely been able to take care of herself _and_ arrange for a rescue. This was definitely going in her file, because that was the signal that backup was on the way and it was time to get out of there to meet it.

And it could not have come soon enough.

"Kill them both," Hu said with a disgusted look on his face, then repeated the order in Wutai.

There hadn't yet been made a pair of handcuffs or set of ropes that Reno couldn't get out of--it wasn't even a matter of strength or needing to pick the locks, it was that Reno was so insanely flexible that he could contort his hands enough to make them small enough to slip out of them and he had a less-than-healthy hatred of being tied down, figuratively and literally, and would do whatever it took to get loose. His hands might be bloody and raw afterwards and he might need a Cure to fix the fingers that would sprain or break to do it, but he could get himself free, and while he'd been yelling at Hu, Rude had recognized the tell-tale signs of Reno slowly wriggling one hand free.

And once that had was free, that was pretty much the end of things.

"Yeah, well, about that," Reno sneered, and jumped for the closest man's gun. He got it before they could even realize what had happened, and he pointed it at them and snapped something that sounded like 'shabby danny loud moo" to Rude's ears.

That was when _everyone _started shooting.

--

Later, when everyone that was supposed to be dead was in fact dead and they were thankfully on their way back to Midgar, Rude turned to Reno and said, "Reno, what the fuck did you say to them?"

"Which time?" Reno said, looking over at him lazily. Unlike Elena, who occasionally looked over at Reno's demeanor and twitched, Rude was used to Reno's more..._relaxed_ way of piloting a helicopter, sprawled out in the pilot's seat like he was on the world's most comfortable sofa, but Rude still preferred when the other man kept his eyes focused firmly on the way.

"The time that got them shooting at us," Rude said flatly as he dug out a Potion from the helicopter's emergency supplies. He'd taken some damage, and it was _not_ feeling good. The only thing that had kept him from getting shot was his diving for the floor while _still_ tied down in the chair, and even then he'd gotten grazed before Reno shot everyone. "Shabby danny loud moo?"

Reno gave him a blank look before he suddenly grinned, then adjusted their direction slightly, indicating that, despite appearances he was completely aware of his surroundings and was in fact actually piloting. "Oh, that? Heh. Nothing major. I just called 'em assholes and told 'em to go fuck their moms."

--

Once they got back and got all the paperwork done--although oddly, Reno had volunteered to do the paperwork, something he never did, but Rude wasn't one to question it, if for no other reason than so much had been said in Northern that Rude had no idea of anything that had gone on--they headed straight to Rufus' office.

"Here's all the information we now have on the Wu clan to date," Reno said, dropping a file on Rufus' desk. "Current head, Wu Ting Liang. Took over after the old head, Wu Shan Wen, got hurt real bad the last time they tried to move in to Midgar."

Rufus frowned slightly. "Last time?"

"Yeah," Reno said, looking antsy. "They tried to move in, they all got killed. Crossed the wrong people here, ya know? Anyway. They went back to Wutai and regrouped. There was a big brouhaha over who was gonna take over next."

Rufus nodded slightly. "From what I heard, the Wu clan had been one of the most powerful mafia families in northern Wutai."

Reno nodded. "Yeah. There had been a big feud between the Wu clan and the other big northern mafia family, the Li clan, and that resulted in..." Reno faltered slightly and a look Rude couldn't begin to place crossed his face as he picked up the files and rummaged quickly through them in a way that caused Rude to frown faintly, because there was something _off_, before Reno kept going, "...in the murder of the then next head of the Wu clan, Wu Gao Lun, and the kidnapping and assumed murder since ain't nobody found 'em of his family. And after _that_ the Wu clan went after the Li clan hard and had more or less stomped 'em flat. But problem was, the son kicked it and the grandson was MIA, so after the old guy drinkin' his meals through a straw, there wasn't a clear line of...whachamacallit, Rude, who the next guy's gonna be?"

"Succession."

"Yeah, that," he said, looking more comfortable, and Rude wondered what in Hel's realm was really going on. "Anyway. Looks like the Wu clan more or less fell to shit after the top guy got taken down, and the Li family rose back up. But then the Wu clan got itself back together and seems like that they and the Li family made a truce or something, 'cause what with both big mafia families being out for the count, some of the Yamatan clans, especially the Shan Yuan-zu...whoops, sorry, no, the Yamamoto-gumi, my bad, been sayin' it too much in Northern, were startin' power grabs. Plus, they, y'know, hate us more than each other," Reno finished. He flipped through to another page. "In fact, looks like there was a kinda friendly take-over, what with the new head bein' a Li an' all."

"What?" Rufus said, blinking slightly. "I thought you said the head was....Wooting Leeang?" he finished, stumbling slightly over the name.

Reno nodded. "He is now. He _was_ Li Ting Liang. He married Wu Shan Wen's daughter Mei Tao, and took that name. Making peace and all that, y'know?"

"Did they ever figure out what happened to the family of the murdered heir, then?"

That strange look crossed his face briefly for a second and was gone, so fast Rude wondered if anyone else had even noticed. "...Nothin' official," he said, shrugging. "All signs point to 'dead,' though," and his voice was curiously flat to Rude's ears.

"Anyway," Reno said, going on. "Thanks to the big brouhaha a couple years back, when the Wu clan tried to come into Midgar, they decided to do everything under the umbrella of the Li clan, lookin' like they were hopin' it'd take ShinRa longer to step in--long enough for them to get entrenched. But in Wutai, they're still the Wu clan, since that name has a hellova lot more name-brand recognition. But now the Wu clan is as big as the Yamamoto-gumi in the Yamato Province, and if they're thinking about seriously expanding over here, which it looks like they are, we are gonna have some problems. The Yamatan yakuza doesn't mind playing nice-nice with ShinRa an' our folks--you know Don Corneo, he's all big with them now, even got himself a place in Sector Six's Little Yamato that's built like somethin' right out of Nankyo gone _skank_--but the Wu clan _does_."

"Well, there's our answer, then," Rufus said, raising one eyebrow gracefully. "I believe your job is to eliminate problems for ShinRa, correct?"

Reno smiled, and it was a smile of malice and expectation. "Damn right it is, boss," he said, and Reno's eyes _glittered_.

--

"Aiight," Reno said, as soon as the door shut behind him. "It is now officially time for me and a bottle of hair dye to make nice-nice until I'm a redhead again," he said poking at his hair.

"Aww, and I had just gotten used to it like this," Rude deadpanned. "Xiao Luo."

Reno's eye twitched. "Man, didn't I tell you never to talk Wutai? I coulda sworn I did," he said, and grinned.

"Next road trip, you're going to dress up again, right? We should go skiing up in Modeoheim; I've always wondered what you would look like blond. Or maybe my home town. Bald might be a good look on you."

Reno, Rude knew, was very quick, very agile, very good at climbing large things, and very unpredictable. So he really wasn't _that_ surprised when Reno, with a cry of, "Oh, _now_ you fuckin' grow a sense of humor!" jumped on his back, legs wrapped tight around Rude's waist to keep him in place, and started _hitting_.

Reno's PHS rang then, so with one last hit, he slid off of Rude's back and answered it, sounding like he was about to start laughing at any moment.

He didn't sound like that for long, his face going serious and professional, and his side of the conversation mainly "Yeah"s and "OK"s.

"That was Tseng," he said, as soon as he hung up. "He's getting back from wherever the fuck he is tonight, and he wants us in his office first thing tomorrow, an' didn't sound like my idea of 'first thing'," Reno said, frowning slightly.

"Perhaps because your idea of 'first thing' is noon?"

"Hey, I ain't that bad. Noon is fuckin' off for lunch, an' you can't fuck off unless you came in already, y'know? Eleven."

"I stand corrected. Did Tseng say why he wants to see us?"

Reno gave him a look. "This is _Tseng_, yo. That bastard _ever _tell nothin' he don't need to?"

"You have a point," Rude said wryly.

Reno groaned. "That don't bode well."

"But it's tomorrow."

Reno grinned. "And not _today_, that what you saying?"

Rude let a small smile touch his face before he nodded, and Reno grinned. "I _like _the way you think, partner. C'mon, it's beer time."

He stopped at plucked at his hair. "But first, me, makeup remover, an' a bottle of hair dye have a date. I ain't dyein' my hair after, 'cause even I know drunken hair dyein' ain't the best of ideas."

"...I'll pick up the dye," Rude offered, and Reno just laughed at him.

--


End file.
